Congrats to the cast of ‘Cabaret’ at William Peace University – featured on NBC17′s ‘Today’ this morning!
Feb
16
Publicity Shots – ‘Cabaret’
A few publicity shots for ‘Cabaret’ at William Peace University:
Feb
14
Drive-by, grainy cell-phone photo post, part deux!
First dress for ‘Cabaret’ went beautifully! There are notes, of course (there are always notes!), but for the most part they’re fairly minor and should be easy to fix.
I’ll admit – the part I’m the most pleased with are the Kit Kat girls. I worked hard to give each dancer her own distinct personality, based on how the actress was working the character. This is definitely one of those productions where location paid off – my workspace is directly adjacent to the theatre, and since I do all of my work for this school in the evenings, I have the luxury of being able to listen to rehearsals. It means that, as a designer, I’m more in tune with the actor’s process than I am in other theatres – but it also means that, as a designer, I have to be willing to be flexible and make changes mid-process. There were a few rough spots, but overall I really love the organic process that I’m able to have here. Plus, it’s such a joy to be able to hear a production evolve from the first read-through to opening night. Everyone puts such heart and soul into the process – it’s truly amazing.
Well – back to it. Still work to be done. See you in Berlin!
Feb
13
Quick photo post!
Angel Dumott Schunard - aka Jason Cooper in NC State University's 'Rent'
Quickie drive-by photo post! I’ve been crazy busy, getting ‘Rent’ and ‘Cabaret’ up and running. ‘Rent’ had it’s first dress rehearsal last night, and everything looks great! The actors are all pouring their hearts into their roles, and everything seems to be running very smoothly behind the scenes. Here is ‘Angel’, wearing the fantabulous, shiny Santa coat I’ve been posting photos of!
And, over in Berlin, ‘Cabaret’ is moving along. We have our first dress rehearsal tonight – hopefully it goes smoothly, as well. We open on Wednesday, which does not give me a lot of time to take care of notes! A few pieces from that show:
‘Frenchie’ – one of the Kit Kat dancers! I put all the Kit Kat girls into a hodgepodge of 20′s style lingerie and bits. Frenchie is wearing a vintage 20′s knit bathing suit, and I added the fig leaf applique based on this pair of tap pants. I love it – there were a lot of weird pieces like this in my research, where it’s obvious that a dancer used something she owned that was scandalous/skimpy enough to be titillating, and then added SOMETHING (trim, sparkle, whatever) to make it stand out.
The Emcee’s concentration camp shirt. This was oddly a difficult piece – construction-wise it was fairly simple, but finding the appropriate fabric was difficult. There are a number of extant uniforms out there, but there is not any consistency in the fabric. Most of them have alternating dark/light stripes of approximately 1″ in width – but the color of the stripes varied. The most common seemed to be white/dark blue – but there was black/grey, as well. Finding any 1″ striped fabric was hard – and finding the appropriate colors was even more difficult. This is actually an olive green/grey stripe – but on stage it reads as shades of grey. The yellow/pink triangles forming the Star of David is based off of a poster from the US Holocaust Museum, which shows the meaning behind the symbols used on the prison uniforms.
The number was interesting – I was GOING to use ’24601′, but I was afraid that someone would laugh out loud during a very serious moment. So…. can anyone figure out the significance of the number used on our Emcee’s uniform here?
Feb
11
Atlantian Twelfth Night, 2012
Photo by Bill Frazer (Baron Bardulf)
Last month, Himself and I went to Atlantia’s Twelfth Night, hosted by our very own Windmaster’s Hill. It was a beautiful day – we didn’t have anything special planned out, so we spent the day wandering around and chatting with friends. Baron Bardulf was taking photos, so we took time to have our picture taken. I continue to be amused that we have more formal photos of ourselves in garb than we do in regular clothing. 
Here, I’m wearing my 15th c. kirtle and hood – this has become one of my staple outfits, and I kinda love it. It’s simple, flattering, and looks period. Himself is wearing a mish-mash of things – the only thing I made is the hat. But I still think he looks handsome. 
Photo by Tannis Baldwin
I was humbly, pleasantly surprised to be inducted into the Order of the Pearl at Twelfth Night this year for my costuming – this is Atlantia’s GoA level A&S order. Considering that I’ve been fairly inactive for the past few years due to school obligations, I was VERY surprised to find myself called into court. I will admit that I got a little teary – and it has definitely inspired me to step up my game. More to come… once I get through this week. (Two shows going into tech in the same week. ACK!)
Jan
30
1920′s Camisole and Tap Pants
Cute little cami and tap pants for one of my Kit Kat girls – ‘Texas’. Although it’s not scandalous to the modern eye, I’m putting most of the Kit Kat dancers in historic lingerie – and I’m “tarting” it up by adding burlesque decorations, as seen in some of the archival photos I used for research. Texas, playing up the fact that she’s an “exotic American”, is in patriotic blue and white. I need to find more star appliques, and the tap pants need hemming – but overall, I’m happy with what I have. Next: the dyeing and distressing. This looks far too new and shiny for a seedy nightclub dancer!
Jan
24
Today 4 U, Tomorrow 4 Me!
We’re working frantically to outfit the cast of NCSU’s production of ‘Rent’ in February – and one of the more entertaining projects I get to work on is a piece for ‘Angel Dumott Schunard’ – her iconic, flirty Santa coat.
We have a grad student designing this show – and when she came back with the bag of fabric, she said something like “You’re going to hate me… but this is going to be AWESOME!” And she’s right. It IS AWESOME. Instead of going with a boring plush velvet, she found this amazing metallic red flannel backed tablecloth vinyl. AMAZING. It reflects bright red and a charcoal grey, and has a subtle snakeskin-like texture to it.
The designer sketched out a rough rendering, from which I drafted a pattern based on the actor’s measurements and put together a toile of the garment, shown here:
Once the toile was complete, we called the actor in for a fitting and did some (thankfully) minor tweaks to the pattern. I cut everything out yesterday, and started putting it together today:
The vinyl has been surprisingly easy to work with – although it stinks to high heaven when you iron it. The best way I’ve found to get the seams to press flat is to press the seam open on the wrong side (using a press cloth – ALWAYS USE A PRESS CLOTH!), flip it over and press the seam on the RIGHT side (press cloth!), and then whack the heck out of it with my tailor’s clapper. I had to use that process at least twice per seam, but doing so helps the vinyl sit nice and flat.
Of course, right now my inner costume historian is giggling madly, because in its current state it looks just like a popular 15th century men’s doublet style! Of course, it won’t look like that once it’s finished… but the idea of a bright metallic red 15th c. doublet makes me giggle.
Back to work!
Jan
15
Coif Progress and new resources!
We’re knee-deep in ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Rent’ at my schools – so my progress on the coif is slowing down a bit. But I am still confident that I’ll be able to have this done for the spring. All that’s left is a bit of fill-stitch, and then I’ll probably put some stipple stitch in the vines, as well. I had thought about adding paillettes, but I don’t think my budget (or my persona’s budget!) can handle it.
Kendra van Cleve of ‘Demode’ has unearthed an AMAZING resource for 16th c. costumers – 16th. c costume illustrations done by Lucas de Heere, in color! (Link to the pdf of the book from the University of Ghent) There are lovely images from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. I am rather fond of these images of Flemish women:
Stripey-trimmed partlet! Squee! I need a new working class project…. Flemish is SO 7-8 years ago, but this is so pretty! Love, love, love it. Thanks, Kendra!
Dec
31
Embroidered Elizabethan Coif – 1600
This beautiful embroidered coif lives at the MFA, Boston – accession number 1996.51. It measures 9″ by 17″, linen cloth with silk and metallic thread. I love, love, love the shading on this – it’s amazing what you can do with that stipple stitch!
Dec
30
Printed Petticoat
V&A museum no. T.87-1923
Interesting.
“Cotton petticoat with black surface decoration. Lined with linen, with a strip of printed floral linen, probably from Alsace, around the hem. Made on the Coromandel Coast for export to Europe. The lining of the hem is from Alsace, ca.1780.”
I was poking around on the V&A website, and I found this little number. The museum description states: “Although it is hand-drawn, the simple treatment of the design on this skirt almost gives the appearance of a block-print. Unusually for a chintz fabric, the black has been drawn directly onto the cloth. There is an East India Company stamp on top of the painted design on one side of the petticoat. Black designs like this were probably intended as mourning wear.”
Although the museum website dates it at 1580-1585, I’m guessing that’s a typo – since it dates the lining of the hem at 1780, the EIC wasn’t founded until 1600, and the English didn’t even START their journey around the Cape of Good Hope until 1591. (the Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coast of the Indian subcontinent.) Still, it’s a lovely piece – too bad it’s out of period for SCA use, though!