Like an Angel, with Bright Hair

Alicia puts extensions in Marg's hair

Dan works on the lips

Elizabeth, the future Queen

Three photos on this one. I just couldn't resist. And still so many more to post from the photo shoot earlier this week. These are of my daughter Margaret (now you see why I couldn't resist), who will be playing the part of young Elizabeth.

She doesn't have any lines in the play—just walks in, stands around, and has a great costume. Check out that shimmering, sequined, wine-colored fabric from Mood. It's fantastic. And the folks in the costume room did a great job with the cartridge pleats I asked for on the dropped waist. Elizabeth's costume is another example of the play's melding of period styles—the 15th century waistline/silhouette and simple crown mixed with the modern fabrics and cartridge pleats at the hips.

A word about hair and makeup in the production. Dan Sandy and his team are pulling out all the stops on this one. The makeup is fresh and forward thinking. And the hair designs that Alicia Carr has come up with are beyond my wildest hopes. I am loving working with these folks!

Keep watching for more amazing stuff from the hair & makeup people. (HINT: Lady Anne looks like she's stepped off a Paris runway.)

Bay of Death

Dale, Randy, and Rod problem solving on the set

Setwise, the look I'm going for with this Richard III: The Terrible Reign set is stark, clinical, and sterile with an undertone of evil. In the adaptation Richard has nearly a dozen people killed during the course of the play, and the word "blood" (or "bloody") occurs over 40 times. That repetition and Richard's brutal actions got me thinking about what metaphor best embodied his character. (The biblical "whited sepulchre" came to mind; however, that image wouldn't transfer well to stage.) In the end, I was inspired by research of old morgues and slaughterhouses. Morgues appear scrupulously clean but are in reality gruesome and sometimes grotesque. Slaughterhouses do a bloody business but can be hosed down and almost all evidence of what's happened there eliminated. I see that as befitting Shakespeare's Richard (who is likely not much like the historical Richard). Richard is all courtesy and polish outwardly but greed, envy, and wickedness inside. Richard has his relatives and "friends" mercilessly murdered but tidies up the business as if nothing untoward has happened—the supreme example being his wooing of Lady Anne over her husband's murdered corpse. (PURIST ALERT: I've done the unpardonable in this adaptation and changed the identity of the corpse from Anne's father-in-law, King Henry VI, to her husband, Edward. Richard killed both. Every time I've ever seen this play on stage or screen, I think that's who it should be, so I changed it.) Our set looks clean but very black—just like Richard. The shiny surface will also reflect light well—especially red light, reinforcing the major theme of blood.

Enter KING RICHARD

How 'bout this for doors?

So many costume photos to show. But first, here's a post about the set, which has taken a back seat with all of the costume excitement. I made a quick trip to Home Depot and Lowe's over lunch today and look what I found for some of the doors on the set—grey plastic corrugated sheeting. Perfect. There will be a dozen doors across the back of the set. Lots of doors will make for quick entrances and exits, a key, I think, to making this play (incidentally, the second longest in the canon when performed uncut—this adaptation uses about 60% of the text) move along quickly. I'm eager to see what scenic artist Jason Waggoner can do with several of these plugged into my designs.

Fashions to Adorn

Today was a photo shoot for what we call our SMART (Sharing Masterworks of Art) guide. It's a pamphlet we put out for high school students/teachers and anyone else interested in a little background for the play—family trees, Shakespearean information, etc. We also take portraits/photos of the characters to give a visual reference for understanding the relationships. Photographer Hal Cook does an incredible job with helping make the costumes and the people in them look great. We got some wonderful images today.

These are shots of Ron Pyle as Richard III and his boot. Love the spikes and buckles that Barb Filipsic came up with. That boot is on only one leg—his right—and has sort of a prosthetic feel, steampunk style. And those big square buttons are fantastic on Richard's vest. Thank you, Mood!

More great photos to come in the next few days.

All the Cake's a Stage

My amazing 50th birthday cake, created by Sharon Lambright

The cake pictured at left was part of a gift from my in-laws for my big day. You would not believe the detail—tiny burnished scrolls emblazoned with the titles of Shakespearean plays around the edges, ticket facsimiles complete with torn edges, a miniature stage strewn with roses, comedy-tragedy masks, sproinging stars, an open script, a bust of William Shakespeare with a tiny red clown nose beside him, and a genuine FiggyWhig's cupcake (lit). The ultimate in personalized confections.

Well, it's upon me—the end of my fiftieth year. I'm not going to get too sentimental here, but I do find myself so very thankful for the many blessings that are daily showered upon me. Not many people have the luxury of blending their vocations with their hobbies. I'm thankful that I can practice my art without worry that I will be forced to compromise my principles and that there is a place where I can use my talents to bring honor and glory to my Creator, Who has given me every good thing.

Fitting for Your Purpose

Becky Sandy working with Ratcliffe's jacket.

This is David Stephens, a sophomore who will be playing the role of Ratcliffe in Richard III: The Terrible Reign. The character is one of King Richard III's most trusted advisors. He presides over or participates in several executions—have I mentioned that R3 is a bloody play?

We are experimenting here again with the neoprene. You get a feeling of the stiffness of the material at the (unfinished—it won't stick out like that) front fold. I like the way it makes a strong silhouette and gives a forward, modern look to our production. And that strong v-shape never hurts either.

Eyes Being Vexed

Lauren Polson Hamblen as Regan and Ron Pyle (in chair) as Gloucester

Someone commented on the background of this blog, so I figured I'd explain it in this post. This is a photo from a 2005 production of King Lear that I designed and directed. In researching the text, I found lots of references to land and land ownership. Some of Shakespeare's phrases reminded me of images I got while reading Chekhov and Tolstoy—especially the short story "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" That led me into researching images of land/possessions and people in turn-of-the-century Russia—the vastness of the empire, the desire for more than what one has. That informed my decision to set the play in a very large kingdom with some greedy and ruthless heiresses. The coldness/harshness of the terrain I imagined is also reflected in the costume design. I noticed the word "fox" used a number of times in the text of the play, and I liked the multiple connotations of that word that even modern audiences can relate to. So I dressed the woman in Edwardian with touches of fox fur—especially Regan, who at a point in the play demands that her husband put out Gloucester's eyes. I love the chair that Dave Vierow made for this scene. It was inspired by some electric chair research.

Yon Fellow in His Grave

Archaeologists from the University of Leicester have just uncovered a stone frieze that they think may be part of a medieval choir stall in the heretofore lost Greyfriars church. The site is located under a parking garage (or "car park," as the British say) in Leicester, England. The folks at the dig are looking for none other than good ole King Richard III's grave. They've found two skeletons—a man and a woman—and sent them for DNA testing. (They'll compare to a known descendant.) The male skeleton has what appear to be battle wounds and scoliosis, but no hunchback. Historical writings of the time state that Richard's body was taken to Leicester, which is north of London, for burial after he died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. These discoveries—and what's still to be found—would make a great sidebar to our educational materials for Richard III: The Terrible Reign.

Last Scene of All

Touchstone (Philip Eoute) rants to Will-Yum (Paul Michael Garrison) while Audrey (Nikki Eoute) attends.

Just put another show in the box last weekend. The Greenville Shakespeare Company finished a 16-performance run of As You Like It with two shows Friday and Saturday nights. These shows are designed in what might be called my Early Goodwill period. I enjoy the stretch to put a play on the boards with a very limited budget since that is what I expect many of my students will have to do when they leave school. We stitch, dye, paint, and combine clothing bits and pieces to come up with what I hope is a semi-cohesive whole. As with a high-budget show, color plays a huge role in making the show seem unified. One of the costume pieces we got the most comments on this year was Touchstone's (Philip Eoute) motley/pied pants. They were a pair of blue window-pane men's linen dress pants hand-painted with orange and green designs and hemmed quite high. I hope they said "clown" without screaming "court jester." Add lime green high tops and what more do you need?

Upon the Giddy Footing

Here's some research I found on 15th-century men's shoes. (Schnabelschuhe means "beak shoes.") The second picture is what I found on the streets of NYC. Love the pointy, slightly upturned toes. The gun-metal buckles give it an industrial edge, I think. One of Richard's (the character's) shoes will be transformed into a corrective boot by adding an amazing leather leg brace created by Barb Filipsic of our costume room.

Some Men of Sound Direction

I spent the better part of a day this week with my good friend Kenon Renfrow, pianist/musician extraordinaire, working on sound for the Richard project. Ken & I have collaborated several times over the years  (King Lear, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew to name a few), and I enjoy hardly anything more than to throw some bare-bones ideas at Ken and watch him work his magic on a keyboard. Here we are in his home studio listening to drum sounds. The guy in the foreground is Bob Johansen, our sound mixer at the theater. I am the (very poor) camera man. (Hey, it's a low-end cellphone. What do you expect?)

A Keen Encounter of Our Wits

Cast of R3: The Terrible Reign at the table reading

Tonight was the table reading for the November 2012 production of Richard III: The Terrible Reign. After auditions and weeks of callbacks (last Spring), it was wonderful to finally hear the voices of this amazing cast (including Ron Pyle, Beneth Jones, Darren Lawson, Corretta Grass) reading the text. The rehearsals for the next few weeks will be spent around this table in the loft of our theater. Now come many hours of digging for meaning, figuring out pronunciations of names, etc. I find this to be a satisfying part of the rehearsal process.

Smooth'd His Wrinkled Front

A little neoprene goes a long way

Actor Matthew Arnold gets a fitting from draper/seamstress extraordinaire Becky Sandy and me. The jacket is completely quilted, and we are experimenting with neoprene as trim (more neoprene news in future posts). Should be interesting. I'm hoping it will make the character (Catesby) fall more on the futuristic end of the time continuum for the world of this production. Take note of the footgear (the character's, not mine). I'll try to snap a photo of these sweet shoes and post it at some point.

Before Its Time

Here's another sneak peek at some of the Richard III: The Terrible Reign costumes. This is an unfinished garment belonging to Richmond (a.k.a. Henry VII). Our costume department's resident milliner/cobbler/embellisher, Barb Filipsic, has done some fabulous work for this upcoming production. Since this photo was taken, she's added studded leather buckles. The stylized armored collar fabric is another Mood Fabric (NYC) find. Each scale is a tiny mirror. The gold fabric underneath is pretty great, too. Can't wait to see this under the lights onstage.

Scarce Half Made Up

Working on Richard's coat

That title is a snippet from Richard III's opening speech (the "Now is the winter of our discontent" one) and it describes this picture, taken in the costume workroom, well. I'm holding up a swath of the most glorious beaded fabric that will be on the right arm only of Richard's coat. I found that fabric (intended to be reminiscent of 15th-century chainmail) and that glorious iridescent green leather at Mood Fabric in NYC this summer. Also in the picture is Ruth, the head of the costume shop. She's great to work with and puts up with my whims and changes of mind. So glad she was on board with the leather collar's having an unfinished edge—unfinished is perfect for a guy like Richard III.