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.

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.

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!

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. . . .