The Show!

Disaster struck last week, but thankfully not the show. After 2 hospital visits and my blood test results it appears I have Glandular Fever, and thus have been only able to be involved in the last minute preparations and decisions for the show via the telephone. This has been a devastating blow as this show has been such a large part of my life since last September. However, I have managed to stay in contact with Sarah and Grace, and some of the helpers for updates - and last night was able to attend the show!

 

There were minimal changes to the costumes, and for the most part they were exactly as they were in the pre-dress parade much to my delight, with one major and a few minor exceptions that had not already been discussed in the pre-dress parade. The only main change was that one of the wedding dresses - made by Helena for the character Helena - had been changed in the dress parade by our head of year, who bought a replacement herself that was closer to the design before I changed the sleeves. The minor changes were that thankfully the tutors had managed to find a replacement for Philostrates jacket and Theseus' that were much closer to my designs and the look that I wanted and worked perfectly, and that the wedding dress for Hippolyta, made by Danielle, had its collar missing. I am not sure why yet, I have not been able to find out if it was a decision made by the tutors or if she ran out of time, however I am sure there is a good reason.

 

For the show itself, by the audience reaction it was a tremendous success. There was generous laughter and applause throughout. The actors were brilliant, there was not a single missed line that I was able to spot, all the action was well paced and placed and they have all done a brilliant job. I shall admit, being so close to the costume and backstage aspect of this particular show I spent as much time (if not more) looking at the costumes making sure there were no errors or slips, and that everything was moving well and they were wearing the right clothes at the right time but it all came across incredibly well, and the curtain call party was a joy to watch. I shall not post my highlights and risk spoiling the play for any viewers of tonight's performers but if I say for them - watch out for Robin Goodfellow, the fight scenes and for Bottom, after tonight they shall know what I mean.

 

This was my first experience working as a costume designer at the head of a team, and as such I did spend a lot of my way trying to work out exactly what my role was, where it began and ended. While many times the line did blur and I have learned at times you do just get on with whatever needs doing no matter who's job its meant to be, I have a much better idea now of what I need to do to succeed as a costume designer for a larger production.

 

On the whole, though this performance has had a host of problems throughout, they have all been resolved quickly and there were no major issues or last second panics. The wigs, which we were so worried about, came off beautifully onstage and I am relieved that we got to keep them in the production as they made the fairy costumes so much more interesting and surreal. If I could change anything about my work, while I did go to the tutors relatively quickly I would have made sure to consult the tutors sooner when there were issues that arose in finding things. I would also have pushed harder on the issue of the hires to make sure we had what looked the best, though that issue was resolved in the end. I would have liked to have been able to help more with the breaking down but unfortunately that started at almost the same time as my illness and I was therefore unable to be as involved as I had hoped.

 

My favourite - though I would never usually pick favourites - of the costumes has to be Robin Goodfellow, and on this special thanks to make-up as they did a spectacular job. The reason that I am so very happy with and proud of this costume is that it looks EXACTLY like my design, to the point that when the actor pulled the same pose on stage as I have him in on the design it was virtually identical. Because of this I am hoping to use a photograph of him from the production photographs for my photo in the AUB Graduate directory.

 

I have enjoyed working with my team, and with Ken and Oliver, on this production and have discovered a love of working on Shakespeare that I never realised before. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire of the costume and make-up team that worked on this production who did such an incredible job.