Up to my old costuming tricks!!

 People, my new costuming tricks are all about dressing my alter ego. But my old ones were costuming for theatre shows. 

So, recently I've done a tiny bit of costuming. Basically I am a sort of shadowy resource who has tried, and sadly failed, to remain anonymous at a local community theatre. 

My contributions are generally millinery, but a couple times I've busted out something more. Here's a breakdown:

Pride and Prejudice:

This is how it all began. I got wind of a production and offered to insert headgear, as it always gets overlooked but I think it is more important than dresses for setting the scene and tone. (grr, looking at you, Bridgerton)

All of these hats are made from a range of cheap hat types - bowling fedoras, bowlers, molded plastic "top hats" you name it. I now keep a supply on hand just in case. They are useful as they have the crown to brim join already made.

Full bonnets are no good in the Gryphon theatre which has steep lighting lines so they'd cast shadows on faces. So these are all back of head types.

Lady Catherine de Burgh's extravagant tall hat. She was wearing purple and orange so I figured, get in there and lean in on the crazy! It won an award for the best showstopper of the year!

A wee ruched velvet hat, and a shallow bonnet. That was the only straw hat I could find, hence the other solutions I found to the hat making process.

I think this is my favourite. No idea what I based it on! It has a lovely pleated lining though.

Another ruched hat with turban vibes and ostrich feathers.

A little cutie based on a very cheap white top hat. Silk taffeta with organza and fake flowers. It also has a gorgeous pleated lining.

Gabriel

Set in the Channel Islands during WW2 occupation, Gabriel the play needed a period credible brassiere. Trouble is, the wearer would have worn a binder style bra, not the dainty peach and lace ones we love to think of, so I decided stuff it, and built a pretty one on top of a modern skin tone bra.

For the 4 seconds it is on display, I think it would have gotten the idea across. Lightweight silk I overdyed with food colouring as it was a bit wishy washy, and chantilly lace from my stash also dyed with food gels.

 Persuasion

Persuasion just closed after a sell out season. A mammoth effort that was costumed from scratch. I was asked to make a bicorne,and  also ended up making a second, not shown.

This is made from a black $12 sombrero - I reduced the crown down, steamed it into shape, covered it in felt using Steamaseam, bound it with black bias then glued on authentic metallic trims. The metallic trim is too heavy for a machine and I knew the stitches would be super obvious from the back row. And no way was I sewing this on through all that nasty synthetic.

So, it turns out my lovely friend Janet was also cast in it and so I undertook to make her overcostume too. She doubled as Lady Russell and Mrs Musgrove. The show wasn't trying to be super authentic, but it definitely captured the vibe, I feel. Sadly my pleas to incorporate shawls and bonnets weren't taken up due to the seamless style of it all, no time for transitions - but I DID get headwear onto my friend.

The only thing I made in this image is the cap Janet is wearing (second from right) but don't you love the puppets for the annoying Musgrove Children! The rest were made by a local lady who is incredibly clever, and had a month to do nothing else. The things people do for community theatre...Anyway cap made from self stripe silk organza and a couple of other laces. The Dreamstress donated some lacy offcuts for this, thank you as always!

Funny, Janet is in the same position in this pic as the last, but this time as Lady Russell. I made her red overdress and turban. The fabrics are velvet and a heavy Indian cotton with metallic crewel embroidery. Everything Janet wore has come back to me and that dress is going to become a jacket at some stage!

And that's my foray into theatre costuming! I did assist with another professional production but I'm not spilling the beans on that one!

Good Friday Catch Up!

Ah, Easter is upon us. I've been rather busy for the past however-many weeks, with new staff, new projects and chasing up evidence of past ones to share.
Finally, a result! Remember in February I had a show in the NZ Fringe Festival with my delightful friend Hans - it seems an eternity ago now. But finally I've had time to go over the videos of each night, choose the one I like best and start uploading them to YouTube. as you dotube.
Our show is Clever and Constance Sing Songs for Grownups. It is thus titled because we sing about things that young people don't really have to deal with.
Of all the songs we butchered in the show, this one is the one everyone keeps talking about. It is very long, but there's a reason for that. The actual song starts about 2:50.
Apologies to my overseas readers, as my accent can sound rather like a chicken clucking I feel. Happily the singing is a bit easier to follow!

If you enjoy this and want to see more, follow the video to YouTube - this song is in a playlist of other songs from the show.
More on weddings and other things soon xo

Je Suis une Rockstar

More show photos!  I am actually making a real dress for me and have several other projects on the sideline but it may be a couple of weeks before there's anything to show you. So, in the meantime, sequins it is.
At the March Burlesque Baby show, I was emcee again (did the March show last year) and I decided to get down with the cool kids and be a bit of a pop diva.
I love this look - hot pink fall and strapless dress - but the song really wasn't me (Get the party started). This show is a bit like an open mike though and the place to try new things. So, good choice eh!

 This dress is RTW!!! I stuck rhinestones all over the bodice to give it some more glitz. I love it though - the same cut as the LBD. 

 A Dusty Springfield moment.

 The skirt is draped at the sides and comes in at the bottom. This shape does wonders for me.

 Also wearing the black sequin bolero, because I like the line.

 Also breaking out the long gloves for a bit of audience participation

 Peeling gloves like a big ham to the delight of the audience.

 In the second half, I wore the dress that won the internet. And different hair.

 The curtain call - me, Miss Phoenix Rising, Courtney l'Amour our producer, Visha Vulpe, Penny Scott our stage momma, Amber de Luze, Victor Victorious and Kapi.
All photos were by Paradox Photography

My Latest Crazy Venture

Weell, the Wellington Fringe Festival starts in a month's time, and while our original plans for a Constance driven cabaret have been canned, I am nevertheless appearing in a comedy show, as myself.

21 February, 9pm at Kitty O'Shea's, our show is one of the one hour slots of a series called One Night Stand (see how they did that?) which are one off gigs, hence the name. Hur Hur. Our slot is all about being female and over 40. With Caroline Welkin who is far more experienced than I am, which is a relief!
I'll be musing on everything from The Hobbit movies to 24 hour stay makeup. Issues that impact the over 40s.
I am still working on my material - my goodness it is more work than drafting an original pattern and making it up! A big part of the process is Hard Cases, an open mic night at a local bar. We all use it to test out out material on an audience. Tricky given most of he audience is young and make, which is not my ideal audience. But they are very understanding and laugh at my jokes sometimes, bless!

Dead Tragic opens tomorrow night!

And we're done! I am so relieved that everything is functioning as it ought to. Nothing is too tight or too loose, or too big to get behind the set or too delicate to crawl around on the floor - all that functional stuff that you only find out about once a couple of full dressed runs have taken place.
We had the "Preview" on Friday, which is like a dress rehearsal with a paying audience (cheaper price tickets of course). It's a great idea as it gives the cast the chance to really test the show with an audience reacting (laughing their heads off!) with the extra buzz of not being able to just stop, but the option to do so.
It was a perfect run.
Because video is king, and this one is only shirt, here's the promo video:

Here are some fantastic photos taken by Jasmyne Chung, who laughed so much during the photo run I thought all the photos would come out blurry! She's quite marvellous as the light is not ideal for photo taking and the colours are amazing!

 Running away together, Angelo! Darren Young, Lyndee-Jane Rutherford, Emma Kinane, Jon Pheloung

 At the Copa, they fell in loooove...

 Some rock and roll number, probably about a motorbike accident. SO many songs like that in the world!

 Emma being cool, not entirely sure which song this is!

And Honey, I miss you, and I'm feeling good...Note White satin curtains. Thank you, yes I made them.

 Emma and Michael looking gorgeous together as only they can :-)

Michael Nicholas Williams, musical maestro. By the way, he was interviewed on NZ Radio recently and it is a delightfully entertaining interview for anyone interested in the machinations of musical theatre. Here's the link if you're interested.

Now there's just a month of laundry duty to look forward to ;-)

Dead Tragic!

Why I am so quiet, because as usual I am insanely busy.  Working six days plus extras takes its toll on my blogging time. The next thing looming at me is this:

Dead Tragic at Circa Theatre: a musical review of songs about people dying. In spite of this, it is HILARIOUS.

Circa Theatre is the "proper" professional theatre in Wellington. By this I mean that real grown ups pay real money to see plays there, and I've never seen a show there I didn't really enjoy.
So it is great fun to be assisting the staging of a show in the smaller of the two theatres. I am working with dear friends, whose professionalism just blows me away. Really, throw some choreography at them, a new harmony or a move or a joke and they pick it up and run with it.
This show was first put on in 1991, and you can be entertained by the youthful zest of the cast 23 years ago.
This time everyone is 40+ or even 50+, and the production values run to more than red t-shirts and jeans.
That's where I come in. The last time they did it was four years ago, this was the advertising image, and methinks the designer was a fan of Baz Luhrmann.

 Our new approach is about the TV variety shows of the 60s and 70s.

We really love the orange suit on Middle Brother Brady far left.

 Oh Donny, we love you!

We ended up much closer to the Partridge family formula, but more on that soon.
This was the stuff of our family evenings around the Telly, and the time from which many of the hilariously tragic songs in this show come from. So, we've gone for a 'basic' look for each of the five performers entirely inspired by these fabulous early '70s looks. Big collared satin shirts, fitted vests and flares. Because the stage is wide but shallow, we went for black overs and coloured unders.

A publicity photo taken this week of the cast who had just nailed Bohemian Rhapsody Live. Queen never even tried. They rock! From left clockwise, Emma Kinane, Jon Pheloung, Darren Young, Lyndee-Jane Rutherford. Not pictured in genius music man Michael Nicholas Williams, who is directing and musical directing and performing in this show, while also being Musical Director to the only two other musicals on in Wellington this Christmas! His colour is blue, BTW.
It's easiest to see on Darren, the fitted scoop neck vest out of textured polyester with silver zip front, over satin shirt. Jon's shirt wasn't finished so he is wearing a t-shirt.
Every character is assigned a colour and every costume piece they wear is also that colour.
So, when Lyndee-Jane is Lola the show girl in the Copo Cabana, she really does have yellow feathers in her hair. Darren's Running Bear sports a red feather, and the guys have t-shirts for several of the Biker type songs like Teen Angel, Leader of the Pack etc. I had to dye them to match their shirts as it's not as easy as you would think finding plain t-shirts in specific colours!
The only exception is the Angels, a necessary device in a show with so many tragically killed heroes and heroines going to Heaven. They will have white wings and halos, of course!
More soon...
PS I have cheated and got a fantastic pattern maker to make up the basics while I concentrate on the extras. I just don't have time to do so much sewing, Although I am hand hemming and button holing and button sewing on the basics so it's not all beer and skittles. And while this is going on, I am frantically writing more material for my own shows in late Nov/early December.
More soon...!

Lonely Heart - Martha's Hats

No 1949-1950 setting is complete without hats. Wearing hats, for both men and women, is one of the things that distinguishes the earlier 20th C from the last few decades. If we leave them out of this show then most people would not notice, but they may have a sense of it being "not quite put together" and unfinished.
Ray has a grey fedora that he is rarely going to wear as most shots are interior, but having one in his hands is an important anchor. I just hope that Nick has been rehearsing with it.
Martha has two hats, both made my moi, partly because it is really hard to find hats that old, but also because I love making hats and they don't take all that long to do.

Hat 1: Navy heart shaped hat. This shape was really popular around the time of our play. Whether the brim was heart shaped or round, the effect of a halo rising behind the head was very popular. The crown is made from a commercial hat shape given to me, the brim out of buckram. Whole thing covered in cotton jersey knit (so easy to shape and its dull, thickish texture is reminiscent of felt) and the method an adaptation of my wide brim hat tutorial. The bow is from a scrap of shower curtain nylon I bought at the opshop for 20 cents, as I have no blue in my stash! Trimmed with ivory satin and navy cotton commercial bias bindings.

Hat 2: Red leaf hat. This cloche style hat hugs the back of the head and I love it. I made the base from buckram - cutting a big leaf shape, snipping the long edges and stitching little overlaps all the way around to give it shape. I then covered the outer side with thin cotton quilting batting to soften the shaping lines, then shaped the ruched, bias cut fabric over it. Sew around the edge, trim and sew bias around it to finish it off. The three loops are straight cut fabric with stiff net inside so as to keep their shape.
Small error - the ruching should fan upwards, not downward, but I realised I liked the loops better along the topline not the bottom so it is actually upside down. Such is millinery experimentation.
Thankyou Madame Ornata for modelling. Madame O has been such a great help with this show - coming over for hours to unpick, resew, make me laugh, try things on, make cups of tea, you name it!
Update: it's dress rehearsal this evening which is why it's taken me a few days to get this post completed. And the things I have to tell you about...I don't have time to tell you about! I will very soon, however... :)

Lonely Heart - Why stage costumes aren't as well made as they could be...

I reckon one of the reasons that theatre costumes aren't as carefully constructed as other kinds is this - you know you have an event in two months so you make a gorgeous polonaise or an open robe. It's a push to get it done, right? But you do it because you are committed, and it will be fabulous :)
In theatre - you have an opening night in six weeks and you have to make or find 27 costumes. It's just math. Pure and simple - had we been able to start 6 months ago it would be different, but noone knew then the show was happening. One rarely does, or if so, who is wearing what so noone to fit.
Now, if we get a second run at this one (which I am hopeful bordering on confident about) some may get replaced, others a second go at finishing properly. But on the whole, admitting this is like, I hope, giving a game away that noone in the audience would recognise. There is nothing on the outside of these costumes that is really 'wrong', no machine stitching where there ought to be hand stitching etc. No serging/overlocking anywhere visible.
So hopefully, all will be well. I am down to the last bits and bobs - the do have a habit of taking longer than we think but I guess if all else fails I can pop down to a costume hire place and source a few wigs, a priest's dickie and any other last minute things I forgot!

Lonely Heart Costumes continued -Martha's Suit

This is the real Martha Beck during her trial in 1949. We wanted her to wear a replica of this in the show as she is wearing it in several of the photos that come up in searches and in books about them.
So, in order to make a garment from a photo, it requires some research. And a bit of imagination!
What are the sparkly things? What Is that squiggly thing around the neck? Is it really a dress? What colour is it?
We answered number 3 by careful study of this image. Can you see a hemline cutting across the right hand corner of the photo? It is there. Evidence that this Dress is really a Suit! Score one!
The rest of the answers arrived via the Dreamstress on 27 December when she came up to camp to sew with me in the little dining room of fun. She bore patterns and books, including this one:

Sears, where would we be without you?! What real people wore, no Hollywood interventions.
So, imagine the squeals when we found these two images:

Love the poses! Both from the 1949 catalogue, one Woman's, one Teen's. Now Martha would be a Gracious Lady according to the twisted euphemisms of the time i.e. fat with a big bust, so the exact suit would be in a different section. Given that we are only looking at snippets of these catalogues, I reckon we'd find the actual suit in the full version. And this was enough to confirm my suspicions about the style of the suit.
The other exciting thing about this is that it also confirms my suspicions about Martha - who would have been just the kind of person to order something from Sears, and choose the only one with a touch of bling!
It answered the questions: sparkly things are nailheads on the Woman's and  sequins on the Teen's. The Woman's comes in black with silver, moss green with gold and grey with silver. No intel on the squiggly thing but that's OK as it won't 'read' on stage anyway.
So, here's my 'take' on it, close up.

Nailheads replaced with an attainable solution - square silver sequins secured with a silver bead (Thank you to the Embroidenator for sewing them on! xo) Squiggle is enlarged and done in silver soutache/russian braid, with assistance from my 12 year old stepdaughter Amelia, who patiently sat and sewed all the points down for me! She is amazing! The suit is of a credible viscose crepe in very dark, navy blue, in keeping with my ban on black.

And here is Bryony again in the almost completed suit. The skirt is slightly A line, the peplum is a quarter circle that tapers so a point at the back. All credible elements based on the catalogue.

Now of course this is a perfect example of how stage and reality/accuracy are strange bedfellows. The lines, cut, drape and external finishing of the suit are all in keeping with the time. The elements are enlarged so as to read on stage, but they are executed carefully and are still in keeping with the time. Sequins and soutache are perfectly acceptable 1949 elements. I COULD have gone hunting for the exact suit, and if anyone has a link to it, I'd love to see it, but I had enough to work with. I wonder how Sears felt about their garment being so widely published on the most notorious murderer of the century so far...
Now onto the next challenges :)

First batch of costumes almost done!

Well guess what I've been up to! Costumes all the way. Ably and gratefully helped by Madame Ornata and The Dreamstress who are as talented a duo as a girl could ever hope to know :)
Publicity photos done. Cringeworthy lack of styling in them and many pins were involved as nothing has a zip in it, but here we go!

Surreal photo of daughter and mother, Rainelle and Delphine (Natasha McAllister and Emma Kinane). Petticoat malfunction! Gorgeous navy spotted suit borrowed from a local theatre company, hideous and fabulous Shirley Temple dress by moi. Needs a navy sash, not a fab but wrong improv belt!

Posing as if mid their tap routine. Are they cutesy enough? that was the idea! :)

Bryony Skillington who plays Martha the lead and Michael Nicholas Williams, the genius behind the show (and the piano!) Martha's suit is going to get its own post next, it is very exciting!
The hat will also get its own post soon. But I don't think she'll be wearing it. She is just so gosh darn cute in it, which is not what we want! So it will end up with the spotty number Emma is wearing and I'm making her a plainer one. Bryony is a dream to sew for, everything looks amazing on her, which is kind of tricky when I'm meant to be making her look frumpy. Hrmph! The sign is for Bats Theatre, which I used to practically live in nearly 30 years ago. (Really? Yup!) It is famous right now for having been bought by Peter Jackson to ensure it has a future. Will he come see it? Will he fall for my costumes and offer me his next movie? Will Frodo marry me and have my children?! hehehe.

Ensemble shot. From left Nick Purdie (improv waiter outfit) Natasha, Bryony in another costume, Emma and Nick Dunbar in the right suit and the wrong shirt and tie. Michael looking perfect (Lucky Emma; she's  married to him!)

The lovely couple. In the background just above them is Eleanor the Producer and the beshorted gentleman is Jeff Kingsford-Brown the Director. There's plenty more coming but not together yet. I am so excited!!!

Lonely Hearts preview

While I've been away and sewing, the cast have been rehearsing like crazy. Today they released this little snippet. I love this number, it's a cynical homage to traditional musicals and rock and roll. Three fantastic voices too! And you can spot the talent behind the songs at the piano, Michael Nicholas Williams. Married to Emma, the second voice in the song. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69olZ6aUNFU
I don't know how to make it show up in my post, sorry! :)

My latest project - costuming a show

Been a looong time since I did a show, and this one is a doozy.

Lonely Heart opens at BATS theatre on 17th January 2012

Eighteen years in the making, this musical is the work of Michael N Williams, a very old friend of mine. (As in long standing, not ancient!) We first met when I was 17 and auditioning for Fiddler on the Roof, and he was the Musical Director at about 20. While that was my first and last appearance onstage in a musical, Michael has gone on to become a fabulous and sought after MD.

The story is based on the real life Lonely Heart killers, Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez. It's a grim story set in late 1940's America,  about swindling rich widows out of their money, and occasionally their lives. I love it, even though I generally prefer happy stories. It is a beautifully told tale with stunning music and Michael has done us proud.

Anyway, I am the costume fairy. And I thought it was a good opportunity to look at the difference between costuming a show and making costumes for reenactment, or for pleasure, as so many of us do. Theatre costuming is my background and it took a year or so to get used to unthinking the constraints of stagework, now I have to put them back on!

Costumes for stage have a number of requirements - lighting, scale of texture and detail, changeability, usability, relationship and mood.

Lighting

Theatre relies on lighting a lot to create effects, set moods, change scenes. Stage light is always coloured - "neutral" light on stage is usually salmon or straw coloured.

See how golden this scene is - the camera picks up the colour far more than the eye does, which responds to the light in a subliminal way.

Because of the use of coloured lights, costume colour and texture is important. This production is to have a film noire, grim feeling, and so will be quite monochromatic, but black is boring on stage (a message I wish most of the performers in the world would finally hear!) and doesn't reflect light well, and is also surprisingly cheerful when partnered with white on stage. I blame years of tophat and tails Fred Astaire numbers. So, I'm going for steel blues/greys. From deepest midnight through steels to palest blues. Drab to sinister, will work well with the light.

Martha and Ray. Like so many of the images from the time, it has a blue caste. We want to capture that without it being visually boring.

Scale of texture and detail

 Real things don't look real on stage, they look diminished. It's to do with the light and the distance. Delicate beading and embroidery are wasted; a hot glue gun line sprayed with gold paint looks better than a piece of cording. When choosing fabrics and trims for stage, I look at them from at least 20 feet away to see if their detail travels over distance. This is why theatre costumes often seem tawdry to non theatre costumiers, because they have to be! And I suspect that early film costumes suffered from the costume dept not realising they needed to rein it back a bit, as film and TV are more like real life.

One of the key costumes in this show is based on a dress Beck was photographed in several times. I will be exaggerating the details in order to have them work on stage.

Changeability

Quick changes are almost unique to stage work. Plays are sometimes written to bear in mind the need to change costumes very fast, but not always. So fastenings and entrance/exit points are essential and a costumier needs to know about these things before embarking on a make. Quick changes need rehearsing also - one show I did at dress rehearsal a change took 5 minutes, when there was only 30 seconds. Three run throughs however and we had it "down pat". In this show I am using a couple of unconcealed conversions to change costume - where the actor themselves makes a change to the costume, usually off to the side but within plain view of the audience. This is a tricky theatrical device and one that you need to stick to throughout, but it can be very powerful. Changing from a prisoner to a nurse who hates her job and feels like she is trapped in it, for example.

Usability

Carrying on from changeability. You make a costume, you go to rehearsal and find that a character is rehearsing pulling a plot essential handkerchief out of a pocket that you didn't know the costume needed to have, therefore doesn't. The character is thrown to the ground and wrestled with, and they're to wear a vintage dress you've borrowed and promised to return in the same condition. Noone thinks to tell the wardrobe unless you've made it clear, keep asking, and go to rehearsals. Costumes need to perform :)

Relationship

Costumes help enormously to help the audience understand who is on the up, on the down, how they see themselves in relation to other characters, and vice versa. Colour is often used, and texture and drape. Stiff costumes for suppressed characters, that kind of thing. Easier to play in this space when staging a period piece than modern dress, as there is more costume to play with and it is 'out of time' for the audience.

Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, while a film, is an excellent example of using colour to establish relationship, and also, let's face it, to help the audience keep track of who is who! The Montagues in blue, the Capulets in red. Even in this shot, Romeo stands out among the reds as being 'not people like us'.

Mood

One of the tricky bits of this play is that the leading lady is a plain frump whose anger at 'her lot in life' has built up to a point where it fuels criminal behaviour. She is also poor. So, no fabulous vintage gear for her - her costumes need to fit badly. This is hard! I want the audience to get this about the character, not think I am a lousy costumier. It's not an issue most costumiers face, we all want to look gorgeous, don't we? So, I am probably going to make the clothes fit but use other ways to convey that they are not good quality, and this is helped by Bryony being such a wonderful actress; she doesn't need me to achieve this mood for her, only to not contradict it. Also in one scene we want her to look transcended and beautiful, as she sees herself, and so I need to maker her look worse the rest of the time, to heighten the contrast. Should be fun!

So in summary, theatre costuming is about doing shouty design things to help the audience catch nuances of mood, relationship and plot. They have little time to ingest a concept - with movies and TV we can watch a DVD over and over but live theatre is in the moment, so you have to grab people and take them on the journey with you. This is all achieved by a harmony of acting, moving, light, set, costumes and sound. Each one needs to work with the others. It is tremendous fun. Oh, and on a shoestring budget too!
More on this as it unfolds...