Stage Directions: Here's a video from the American Theatre Wing that takes a look at the work of the Wardrobe Department, specifically for the current production of My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center Theater. The costumes are created to fulfill the epic world that a play or musical inhabits. It takes lots of organization, maintenance, and often creativity to get the performers ready for each and every scene (and maybe even a quick change during a scene).
2 comments:
I love My Fair Lady, and I love costumes, and if there is one scene that would by my dream to design it would most certainly be the Ascot Gavotte number. But besides my adoration for the show the backstage ballet is always astounding to see in action. There is nothing like the offstage magic that happens only in musicals with the ensemble moving seamlessly like birds in a flock changing costumes and wigs and becoming entirely different characters in 11 seconds. I find that the reassuring part was when they mentioned often the importance of not getting crippling stress backstage, if something goes wrong it is perfectly OK, not the end of the world. I also really appreciated the incredible trust and hopefully friendship that exists between the actor and the dresser. There was something special about how much attention he put into Colonel Pickering’s costumes and how they are laid out and arranged is something on level with royal servants. Lastly, it was a small part but the mention about the difference between how the US and the Brits view costumes because here we have this kind of worship/view about how special costumes they are, and in Britain they are just clothes. I found that deeply intellectual.
This was really cool for me. I loved being able to see behind the scenes of what professional costumers do and how they work. I've always been interested in fashion so when I started in theater, costumes was kind of a natural progression. I love that it allows me to combine my interest in theater with my interest in fashion. This video was particularly cool because it also included a lot of the organizational techniques that they use whish are just as important to running theater as the components themselves. I loved all the interviews that this video included because it really added life the this costume department and allows me to understand the innerworkings of this theater and how each person plays a role. I hope that when I do professional work later in my life, that I have the opportunity to work in a theater that gives me a lot of creative freedom as this one seems to do.
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