The Christmas Break! Minus the break

Now that hand in is over for the first part of A Midsummer Night's Dream, while I will still be thinking about it and looking over it in the holidays, I have jumped straight into the 2013 Mad Hatters Charity Tea Party!

 

This is an anual charity event in Portsmouth for Cystic Fibrosis Kids Portsmouth, made up almost entirel of volunteers. Earlier this year I worked as costume assistant to Tanya Pye on the 2012 event, and I am delighted and honoured to have been asked by the organisers to design the costumes for the 2013 event!

 

After discussion with the organisers I am designing costumes for the characters;

 

Alice

The Red Queen

The White Queen

The Mad Hatter

March Hare

White Rabbit

Door Mouse

Tweedle Dee

Tweedle Dum

 

In addition to this, I will also be designing some of the props, set pieces and 5 hats/fascinators for the main staff to wear. This is due to the fact that in the last event, the organisers and wardrobe team were difficult to spot in the croud for those who needed to find us (the characters, stall holders, security etc.) and this will greatly help with our visibility.

 

Upon discussion with the organisers, as I am still a student they agreed that I should design the costumes during the Winter break when it would not effect my grades for the course and the designs would be ready for realisation in January.

 

 

Research

I have been looking at adaptations of Alice in Wonderland as this is the basis of the event, though the actual performances are related in characterisation and not specifically in plot to the Alice and Wonderland of Lewis Carroll. Also, this is a contemporary event, meant to relate to children. Therefore I am designing the costumes to be a blend of the contemporary and Victorian - bringing in the era of authorship and tying it in with the language often used, in memory from the last event, particularly by the Queens

 

 

Set/Props

The main prop/set pieces I am designing are the 'trees'. Last year the event organisers hired wooden fold out painted prop trees that were fairly unsuccessful as, due to this being an outside event with the uneven ground, constantly moving children, the wind and no way to secure the trees they were constantly falling over. This being the case I am experimenting with the idea of using willow, wrapped in fabric. This would make them cheap, light, and health and safetly consciuos as we could use tent pegs to secure the trees into the ground so that no one would trip on them and they wouldn't fall over, the fabric would prevent the risk of any splinters, and they would, once the shapes had been formed, dried and taped, be durable and easy to assemble.