Yes, yes, the opening night parties and the photo shoots and the fancy clothes, but also:
1) I have gone to Target everyday for the last ten days straight.
2) My credit card has been flagged and frozen because of huge purchases in strange places twelve times in the last month.
3) I spent the better part of my Thursday night laying on the floor of Chicago Dramatists looking at an actor's crotch, then having an in-depth conversation about the needs of his crotch.
4) I fried my Blackberry and experienced such debilitating anxiety that any one of my stage managers might need me in the twelve hours between the fateful spill and the fix.
5) I had to clear space on the kitchen table to eat lunch. It required moving a sewing machine and a pile of other people's pants.
And my stage manager just texted me... I have to go now.
2.27.2010
2.21.2010
Social Observation from a Costumer
The three muses of Costume Design (according to me) are Observation, Research, and Bullshit. Observation and Research require more insight than a lot of people realize, a lot of creating a character is also looking into social behavior and history. It is in this context that I have pondered pantyhose deeper than I'd ever thought possible.
The Old Settler up at Writer's Theatre is set in 1940s Harlem. Stockings in the 1940s came in colors like "nude" but of course, it's my nude color, not the nude color of the ladies living in Harlem. So women with any skin color that didn't match Barbie walked around with funny-looking nylons. Nan Cibula-Jenkins, the costume designer, made the choice to have the girls' pantyhose match their skin tones to appeal to a modern eye. I supported the decision and went off in search of pantyhose with back seams in a variety of "nudes". No such luck. After hours on websites, in stores, on the phone, discontinued products and backordered colors, the best resolution was to buy back seam pantyhose in Barbie doll nude and dye them. I guess we haven't come so far after all.
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