Design

The script

     Hello my faithful readers, yet again I have abandoned you for a long period of time. I do apologize, but I really have been busy and I'm going to tell you all about it! Yay! Seriously though, I have had hardly any free time. The reason I have no time for frivolities? My senior thesis project. As a theatre major it is required of me to do one big blow out project my senior year to put my knowledge to the test. I chose to do costume design for a new play called "44 Plays for 44 Presidents". Now onward to a literary journey that will cover the last five months.

The Poster for the Concordia Production

    It all began with a proposal. I had to make myself look really good and tell the theatre department all the wonderful things I would create if they let me do costume design. This was easy enough, since I am an English Literature major, after all, and it's my job to dig deeper and find meaning in everything. After this was accomplished I had to wait and see if they would accept my proposal. Well, they did and now it was just to wait and see which show I would be designing. So I waited, and waited, and waited. Then the day finally came and I saw the title "44 Plays for 44 Presidents". I had never heard of this play, and my mind immediately went into shock mode. How in the Clark Gable's mustache was I going to make 44 different costumes?
     Once I finally had the script in my hands I made myself sit down to quietly read it. Outwardly I may have been calm, but inwardly my mind was working into overdrive. "George Washington needs an Adam leaf-type outfit! Ben Franklin must look awesome! Oh my lanta what in the world is a pounder? Wait, is this guy supposed to be Elvis? Can I even find a white jumpsuit?" But most importantly "What in the name of Ben Franklin's fried kite will this coat become?" See, there is the Presidential Coat that is passed from actor to actor to signify that they are playing the president at that moment. Well, not so much passed as tugged, pulled, thrown, and general tussling.

I designed these!

     My first reading of the script was the end of April, leaving me all summer to wrestle with ideas in my head. I would occasionally sit down and work for several hours on drawings. Some were just doodles, while others had more of a permanent feel to them. After I spoke with my project supervisor he said to think about  where the coat is coming from, and to whom it really belongs. The cloudy fog lifted from my poor tired brain and I knew that it was George's coat, it always had been.
     Design is a frustrating beast, because while you may be very proud of your design and love what it brings to the table, the director may not like the way it feels. It took a few meetings and a couple re-draws, but my designs got approved and now the searching began. And oh the searching! It was terrible, I had to online shop for hours at work! Ha, just kidding it was awesome. I found some pretty nifty clothes for great prices. Although I will not be ordering from this one website ever again because I selected expedited shipping and it took them three weeks to get it to me. I almost had a heart attack because the 4 shirts I ordered didn't come until three days before I needed to start using them.

The skeleton of the coat 

     Not only did I get to online shop, but I got to spend some quality time with the ghosts in the wardrobe. The wardrobe is one of my favorite places in the theatre, but it's also scary as heck. I once blacked out a little bit because I was going through a box and I didn't hear my boss come in, then all the sudden I look up and there is a figure in from of me. My vision went dark for a few seconds and I'm pretty sure my heart stopped. You can't hear anything in the wardrobe because there are HUNDREDS of clothing articles in there to soak up the sound. These clothes are just a joy to behold and so much fun to dig through. I was lucky enough to find four pairs of pants, five shirts, a sweater, and a jacket that worked for 44 Plays. This is a huge deal since that covered basically half of my actors.
     While most of the clothing was purchased for this particular show, I did have the "joy" of making the almighty coat. Making clothing is exciting, but it is also terrible and frustrating. There was one day I wanted to take the coat out behind the dumpster and beat it with a lead pipe, but I didn't. That would have been stupid because it had no feelings and it would have made it messy and ruined all the work I already did on it. This past week I finished the damn coat, and after sewing things on wrong, making adjustments, creating 39 coat buttons, and stabbing myself with a needle more times than I can count, I had something that I was proud to call my own. Even though I'm proud of it, every time I look at it I still want to throw something at it to let it know that I am its master.

The finished coat will be showcased in the next blog post!

     The next step is going to be damage control, because something always goes wrong. People get careless, and sacrifice the safety of clothes for dramatic effect, it just happens. I'll be watching in the sidelines as my designs come to life, and are inevitably made messy and broken. And I'll be waiting with safety pins, because that is my job, protecting my creations.