Aida Priestess Costume Design

Spent 10 days in NYC buying fabric—mostly for a new 1950s Merchant of Venice I'm working on designing sets and costumes for. But also getting some fabric for a Cyrano costume and finishing up with Aida, the current monster project.

Here's one of my sketches for a priestess and then the garment mid-construction. I'm loving the pleating.

No Stone

Heard Brian Dennehy in a Livestream broadcast today. (He's currently in Waiting for Godot at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada. My wife and I saw him in Death of a Salesman on Broadway in 1999.) Loved one quotation in particular: "I have an enormous appetite for seriously working the material." I think he was actually talking about that's being the attitude of his director, Jennifer Tarver. Tarver also talked about Dennehy's "leaving no stone unturned" when it came to experimentation in rehearsal. Would that all actors felt that way. Rehearsing the play is the best part of theatre for me.

Here on the farm in Greenville, SC, I'm conducting a table reading for a play about Hudson Taylor with the teens from church and continuing rehearsals for the July 5 opening of Comedy of Errors: The Amazing One-Joke Play. We're leaving no stone unturned.

Merchant Building

Saw this side of a building in Lancaster, PA, a couple of weeks ago. What great set potential for Merchant of Venice. Stairs, windows, doors to nowhere, piping, gutters, stone, brick, lines, curves, angles—it's got it all.

Fencing and Rivets!

Passed by this combo chain-link/iron-pipe fence in Manhattan yesterday. Loved the industrial look (next to grommets, rivets are my favorite!) as a possibility in my Merchant set research. Look for this in my set design.

Merchant Lettering

In the midst of Merchant research I came across these letters at an abandoned show in downtown Lancaster, PA. It was a menswear shop. I love the look of these. Perhaps one is a perfect look for a 1950s Merchant of Venice.

Audition Time for Cyrano

Looks like I'm praying—just thinking hard

Down to the wire on casting for next fall's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. New this year: I had those who auditioned send me a headshot. It really helped to have the smiling faces in front of me as I tried placing them in parts. I'm not saying I have a hard time with names, but . . .

Don't know whether the students had fun auditioning, but I had a blast. Saw some really great work from some new talent. Exciting! I could cast several of the ones I saw at callbacks in the lead roles and mount a good show.

Just sent notices out. Wish I could make everyone happy. . . .

Aida Costume Research

Love the animal skins.

A big oops on the cartoon set in the background of the photo below. . . .

Here's some of the research I've been looking at as I finish up costume designs for Aida. Costumes must be completed soon since I head to NYC and Mood Fabric at the end of May to shop for the rest of the fabric for this last bunch of costumes.

Love the Fortuny pleats in the last photo, and our shop has really begun to master the art of a rough-hewn pleating in the last few years.

Sidewalk Nuts

So much depends on nuts in the sidewalk . . .

Last Friday I was in Houston for business. I passed a patch of sidewalk full of nuts and bolts—literally. Embedded in the cement. (Picture shows only a small portion.)

Why? Don't know. How? Couldn't say. Purposeful or random? Not sure. Interesting? Definitely.

Aida Time

rendering (with swatches) for guard

shirt prototype—love seeing the vision take shape

Well, it's time I started posting more things about Aida, the 2014 monster opera I'm working on. This project is huge, and I've already been designing costumes for about a year.

Progress is being made, however. Lots of fabric was bought last summer (lots but not all; stay tuned—another fabric buying trip to come!), and now several prototypes and actual garments are being draped. Great work being down by our costume department!

Saturday AM Mossy Wall

Saw this stone wall while out on a Saturday Morning Stegall Family Fun Run (our first but hopefully not our last). Loved the greens and greys and blues as well as the mosses and all of the irregularly shaped stones. Notice the small fern-like plants poking through some of the crevices.

It's Really Richard!

Richard III's skull

Well, the verdict is finally in—the bones found under the Leicester carpark are indeed those of the last Plantagenet king of England: Richard III. He'll now be buried in Leicester cathedral (not in London as was previously speculated). Very cool.

Nifty Fifties

kitchen/living room—plastic plant, linoleum, perfect!

kitchen—enjoyed picking wallpaper, coffee pot, toaster,
breadbox, kitschy knick-knacks, etc.

living room—note the working 50s television

These are set shots for a show I'm directing entitled Break the Knot. The play is set in 1959. I did the scene design about 6 years ago, and I still like it. (Note the ghosted image of the year on the cabinets—we're working on getting that tweaked and onto the stage right cabinets.) The pictures don't do the 50s aqua colored cabinets and frig justice. I searched flea markets and antique shops from Greenville to St. Louis. My kids still talk about a road trip on which we packed nearly every square inch of our SUV with kitschy stuff—frames, vases, telephone, lamps, dishes, canisters, pictures, a vintage typewrite, etc., etc. I don't do semi-realism often, but when I do, it sure satisfies my junk itch.

The show is tonight (1/31/13) at 7:00 and 8:30. It runs just under an hour with no intermission.

Who Knew?

Who knew that teabags could make such a great visual? Saw this display at an Anthropology store a while back and decided to post for inspiration. Style on the cheap. This could be done even on a schoolteacher's budget.

Imagine a garment out of these. . . .

But don't even think about where they've been. They're all unused and perfectly sterile, I'm sure.

Chevrons

—a wall of chevroned frame samples at a local frame shop

—chevrons in various architectural applications: arches, floors, doors, walls (those are thin, stacked stones, I think), streets/sidewalks

Maybe I'll look into this further as I continue to do research for the 2014 Aida I'm working on.

R3 in the News Again

architect's 3D model

Well, those sedulous folks in Leicester, England, have done it again—they've discovered yet another modern-day connection to our man of the year, Richard III. Last fall it was the bones of a male that they believe may be the medieval king (still waiting on DNA test results—now supposedly coming mid-January). A couple of weeks ago a metal boar was found. Now someone has made a 3D model of the Blue Boar Inn, the place at which Richard spent at least a night before he was killed at Bosworth Field. Here's the full story.
The director of archaeological services at the University of Leicester found detailed drawings in the notebooks of a 19th-century architect—instructions for framing, fireplaces, room sizes, etc., and exact measurements. Perhaps some day they'll recreate the inn full-scale—especially if the body under the parking lot is indeed Richard III's.

Richard III, the Boar

A copper-alloy boar "mount"

I'm checking almost every day to see whether the remains found underneath a car park in Leicester, England, are indeed those of King Richard III. No word yet. 

However, some amateur metal detector sleuths did find something very interesting at the edge of the Thames near the Tower of London in October (evidently I was too busy with other things to see it then)—a mount in the shape of a boar.

Mounts were metal pieces that were often used on pieces of furniture or as decorations on a leather item. Researchers believe this one was once owned by a supporter of Richard III or possibly even the king himself. It is also said that Richard ordered metal badges to be made for his coronation in 1483. Richard's chosen symbol was the boar.

Shakespeare's Hastings refers to Richard as such—

"To fly the boar before the boar pursues
Were to incense the boar to follow us."

As does Richmond—

"The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar . . .

Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine
Is now even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn."

(Note the reference to Leicester, location of said car park!) How great would it be to have one of these as a memento of the Richard project?

My wife sorta wishes I'd incorporated this image/theme of the boar more in Richard III: The Terrible Reign. Ahhh, now begins the post-production coulda-woulda-shoulda.

Design Everywhere

A really great grate

Grate close-up

I'm always on the lookout for design inspiration. In fact, I drive my wife crazy asking her to take pictures  with her iPhone of moss, rocks, tree bark, gates, fences, and brick everywhere we go.

I love the verdegris patina on this grate set in cement against a cement/plaster wall. The dirt/mold patterns are interesting, too, and are good references for when something on a set needs to be "grunged." Grit is so interesting.

Grand Design

Jackson Forrest Eoute

My dear friends Philip (Edward IV and Richmond in the recent production of Richard III: The Terrible Reign) and Nikki Eoute had a baby boy on Sunday night. His name is Jackson Forrest. (Now, that's a name you can yell out the back door when it's supper time.) I've enjoyed pointing out that his monogrammed initials can spell "JEF," after me, no doubt. And, who knows, Jackson might  end up playing the dane in my not-so-upcoming 2042 production of Hamlet. (Lord willing, I'll turn a mere 80 that year.)

Jackson's birth got me thinking about what a great God we have. Talk about great design! What a miracle a baby is!

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. (Psalm 139:13)

We Gather Together

Thankful for my family

My family knows that I'm always looking for design inspiration. Actually, I can't help myself—patterns and colors and textures just jump out at me. So when we paused (in the bright, bright sun—note the hard shadows and intense squints) for a family photo this Thanksgiving, I was taking in the weathering and dirt patterns on the brick of this old mansion outbuilding (is it just me, or are those bricks longer than "normal"?), the splay of the dead vine above the doorway, the relentless creep of the green leaves through any available crevice. There's metaphor in this picture if you look for it.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't comment on how thankful I am for the people God has placed in my life: my wonderful wife, Kim, and my two great kids, Margaret and Cole.

The End of All

Yes, that's toilet paper. I use it to blot the water colors.

Well, Richard III: The Terrible Reign is over. "His knell is knolled" (from Macbeth).

Here is what I do to relax after a big production is completed—start on the next one. We mount the opera Aida in just 16 short months, so I'm working to get some painted renderings to the costume room this week. I've already been working on this show for about 9 months and made one trip to NYC for fabric. But this production will have over 200 new costumes, so I'll head to Mood Fabric again this January.

I will probably do some Richard debriefing here on this blog at some point, e.g., notes about the webcast last Friday (my wife was a chatter), things I'd do differently from a design/directorial, things I learned from this experience, etc. But for now, I have designs to work on. . . .