Tuesday 19 January 2016

A warm welcome



Welcome, Royal Shakespeare Company!

It has been almost one and half years since I returned from Rome, and thus, wrote my last post on this blog.

Here, you can view an in-depth account of my experience at The English Theatre of Rome, one of my most profound and rewarding experiences so far.

Thankfully, since the time of writing this blog, I have developed my ability to communicate more effectively.

I hope that you can bear this in mind when reading and more importantly, I hope you enjoy the content.

All the best,

Chelsea


Friday 9 May 2014

A Broad Abroad - A Fantastic One Woman Act

I said a few weeks ago that I work well under pressure. Well this week was certainly a real test for just how well I can work under pressure.

We received a last-minute request from a Norwegian teacher who was in Rome this weekend with her 28 students and wanted to see a performance. Not to miss an opportunity, Gaby made the decision to put on her one woman show - A Broad Abroad.

This meant we were working under immense pressure. It was mine and Gaby's duty to put on a great show for these students with only 3 days to work. First thing first - print out the script and read over the lines with Gaby. I admire her on the-spot-thinking to put on the show and grasp the opportunity. I created a sound track, designed lights and we managed to run a tech-rehearsal in the 3 short days we had. I have learnt how to use colour in light to create specific ambiance which was important for this show to depict the difference countries. For example we used a directed, long straight blue light at the front to create a New York Subway, and a red hue for the Japanese story.  I thoroughly enjoyed working on this show and liked the intimacy of just working with one other person.


We set the stage with things accumulated from travels and directed a central light effect

A strong red lighting for a story of a Zen Monk
The show went really well, the students thoroughly enjoyed it and the teacher was incredibly grateful. From an audience perspective and in terms of content - this was my favourite performance. It was the sort of humour and style I would like to see at the theatre - true, bizarre stories with humour, and sincerity.

Sunday 27 April 2014

How final exams SHOULD be done

Today was the drama class' finals (finals, so American man) for the class which my boss teaches, as well as the million and one other things that woman handles!

Now when taking into consideration the teacher of the class, it was never going to be your ordinary final exam, noooo way.

The class had learnt and rehearsed Spoon River anthology by Edward Lee Masters and they each had an excerpt written by an imaginary character from the grave. So, how would one hold this final exam I hear you ask? Well, you could just have the students stand and read their pieces, you could have one on one performances in a quiet room... or.. you can take them around the centre of Rome to perform amidst the commotion of a city centre.

Filming in public spaces is never an easy task. This is due to a number of ever so slightly distracting noises. Wailing children. Buzzing motorbikes and car engines. Beggars hollering around for money and of course, the numerous helicopters around because today just so happened to be the canonization of the Pope. Whatever that means...?!

These pain the arse locations were actually only for the students that couldn't make the REAL trip. The next stop was the English Non-Catholic cemetery - spooooky. ..No really it was quite beautiful. It is actually the home to the graves of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley - two major English romantic poets and also the German writer Goethe.

A student about to perform his monologue in the English Cemetery
Next stop, because no finals are final without a final celebration, was the beach. The sun wasn't shining, there were funny looking clouds that may even suggest that rain was on it's way. Did that stop us? Heeeell no.

I got to visit the beach for the first time in Lazio which was cool, we stopped at an apartment of a friend for a delicious Italian lunch (cooked by a New Yorker!) and of course, delicious Italian wine.

What better way to end a 'semester'! Makes me look forward to going back to university and having modules and final deadlines.. not sure it's going to be quite the same though..

The view of the Ostia beach front. Look at those stunning terracotta villas!

Friday 25 April 2014

My hand-made traditional Bengali wedding headpieces

Okay so whilst I've got all this energy buzzing through me why don't I show you some of the cool stuff I've been up to since I've been here.

The first show I worked on when I arrived in Rome in September was called Under The Overcoat, directed by Theodora Voutsa and an adaptation of a novel called The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel follows a Bengali couple who move to America and experience a vastly different culture. 

My delegated role was 'Costume and prop assistance'. This was a great opportunity for me to show what I can do visually.

So, where to start? Well, a new bride needs a headpiece right? ... and wait.. so does the groom?

In Bengali wedding tradition, both the bride and the groom wear a headpiece for the ceremony. A Mukut for the bride, and a Topor for the groom. Like these here:

..Image not my own - as you can tell from the watermark plastered over it

The theme of culture in the performance was so important that I wanted to create the most traditional, realistic costume I could muster (with the teeny tiny budget). Using white fabric, some cardboard and my ever trusty glue gun I gathered all the sparkly golden things I could find and began constructing.

I have to admit, before I can began these I honestly thought - am I actually going to be able to make these in two days? I was working to a deadline for the dress rehearsal and sure enough, I magicked up these in time:

The Topor for the groom in working progress
Kaushik (Nikhil Ganguli) in his Topor. It did actually sit on the head without support.. I promise

Natalie (Ashima Ganguli) in her handmade Mukut
The stunning wedding sari was supplied by the wives of members of the Indian Embassy who kindly lent us much of their own jewellery and clothes.
This was my first lesson in learning that I MUST document my creations. Although these pieces are still around in the costume cupboard it would have been really nice if I had been able to photograph them both on the actors in full costume. During rehearsals and manic showtime however, this is harder than you would ever believe...

It also taught me another little lesson on how no matter how daunting a task.. it's always possible if you have the confidence, commitment and enthusiasm in what you're doing.

Where there's a will... There's a way

Thursday 17 April 2014

Folies Begere Costume & Headpeices I Crafted for 'Nine: The Musical'

We have now finished the performance 'Nine'. I admit, of all the show I have worked on here, this is the one I am most relieved to have finished. I really worked hard and I am looking forward to a few days rest. 


As the costume designer, I showed the ability to be incredibly resourceful; I undercut the costume budget by a significant amount. I did this by being resourcing and imaginative when shopping. This is incredibly satisfying as I know that for a company with such a small budget, an undercut of 200 euro is a serious amount. A few things were brought from new but apart from that I was as cheap as possible. 

My role during this show required thorough planning and organisational skills to meet our deadline last week and cover the vast amount of work I had. I am an excellent organiser in fact, and I am now utilizing this skill within my work to get the best results.

The project gave me confidence in my leadership skills the ability to allocate practitioner roles. The particular moment I am referring to in this reflection is here:  A Costumista's Catalyst

All the costumes and head pieces in the photo's are designed and created by me.


Folies Begere head pieces close ups 



















La Fleur and her Follies Girls in full costume







Saraghina the volumptious, gypsy prostitute 

Saraghina's four gypsy sluttons


The Chorus members in their Overture costume



One of the fellow students filmed the show for his personal project and I was lucky enough to receive a copy. These are stills taking from the film of the performance. 

The overture scene

Louisa and Guido both in 60's fashion, and reporters

Guido's Italian mother in a Roma apron

Guido and the women in his life

Saraghinas sluttons dance, I love the lighting on this

Guido and Claudia, his muse

Louisa and Guido, Louisa in mock 60's glasses

Folies begere dance

Claudia, the muse

Carla, Guido's mistress in a genuine 60's leopard print coat and bag with a sexy red dress

Market bargains - Carla in her babydoll cami 

This was by far my best experience so far working with the theatre. My abilities were put to the test and I worked really hard - it paid off. I got lots of good feedback from people in the audience after the show about how amazing they thought the costumes were. A friend of a friend even asked 'Wow what was the budget for costumes this year?' .. that was really satisfying to hear knowing how little I spent. 


Wednesday 9 April 2014

My Design Process as a Costumista for 'Nine': 21st March - 7th April

Costume design process for 'Nine'

This week I worked my socks off to ensure that the costumes would be ready for the show.

I understand the usual procedure for a costume designer would be to draw up costume designs and pass them on for other people to resource and create. As I would be resourcing the clothes and creating the costume myself I skipped this step due to being on a short time scale. I had 3 weeks to resource, fit, and create costumes.. and the cast wasn't small. I felt that I could use my time more wisely by noting down the costume ideas. I understand that this would not usually be possible in the industry, not only because people would need to see your ideas to visualise them, but because I doubt that the director would trust the designer enough to be able to let them go ahead without seeing anything. Luckily my boss had enough trust in me to let me run with my ideas.

Main characters:

Guido: Two suits- one plain and one plaid, one pair of stylish Italian sunglasses

Guido’s wife: Classy 60’s dress, casual but elegant. Monochrome colours. Long coat and stylish Italian sunglasses

Carla (mistress): Seductive and sexy babydoll/chemise for ‘A  call from the Vatican’, red dress & leopard print coat for second change

Saraghina (lead gypsy): Big bustier to show off her amazing assets and reflect the ‘volumptious’ character from the skirt. Fur, red and black colours. Fishnet tights. Skirt created from layers of material and scarves. Large gold hoop earrings, heavy gold jewellery

Claudia (muse): Long dress almost like that of a ball gown. Very high-profile actress

Guido’s mother: Modest clothing, long skirt and a top with an apron over the top

La Fleur (producer): Black blazer and black trousers with a sexy corset peeking out from underneath. Hot red feather boas to finalise folies’-bergere extravagant appearance.

For the overture scene (the opening of the show) I wanted all of the girls in the cast (the main characters & the 4 chorus members) dressed mostly in monochrome shades with sequins and sparkles. This would represent the dream-like state Guido is in, with all the women around him who are singing a very mesmerising ‘la la la la’ song.

The chorus members would then have two changes to follow and these would be as follows:

Folies Bergere: More sequins. Shades of pink, red, blue, purple. Think super sexy, small underwear, corsets, high heels and most important fabulous head dresses. Feathers and sparkles.

Gypsy Whores: Corsets layered up with large skirts that were somehow hideous yet sexy. A dark kind of clothing shades of greens, purples and deep reds. Fishnet stockings, scarves to build layers.

Once I had thought about what I was after I took a trip to the market and began rummaging through all the 50 cent and 1 euro stalls. Our budget was tight so these were the only stalls I would be buying from. I managed to haggle a couple of things I found for 2 euro down to my 1 euro a piece budget. Here are some of the pieces I nabbed on my first trip.


One size sequin boob tube 1€  --  Size 8/10 black cami 0.50€  --  Size 14/16 White bustier 1

Red curtain material 0.50€    --   Size 10/12 black corset 1€    --    Red stretch cami 0.50€     --   Black silk skirt 0.50


As I was buying from the market there was A LOT of the things that did not actually have labels in them. On my first trip (as I know the cast pretty well) I visualised the students with the clothing and thought about if they would fit. I understand this is not the most professional way of doing things however when I returned home and measured them against size charts – my predictions were really almost spot on. I then had the idea of taking a tape measure with me next time however it is good to know should I ever be without a tape measure I can fairly accurately estimate clothes sizes.

I judged the pieces not only by the size but also by the material and how much stretch there was to allow for manoeuvre.

I took these photos into show my boss after my trip to market to receive conformation that she was happy with the direction I was heading. She was happy and she was even more happy with the prices I had paid for these items.

Total spent so far: 4.50€

Before I made any more purchases I wanted to gather whatever I could use from the costume closet. I went over to Gaby’s and rummaged through masses of clothing. I pulled out everything I thought might come in handy and brought it back to my house.

I had a selection of clothing however I did not have enough pieces that I could try on the girls of even make full outfits with. I wrote down all that I had and assigned them for each member of the cast. For example if I knew I had a top that would fit the muse for the overture (a size 14) this meant I needed to find a size 14 bottom half to match that top. I wrote out all the things I would need and took another trip to the market. It was harder than expected finding large skirts with elasticated waist bands and I needed something that was versatile in size. To solve this problem I bought a number of scarves (actually very good quality scarves at a very good discounted rate after a bit of bartering) and I would fashion those as skirts.

That evening after my shop I began playing around with some outfit combinations on my bed. I would have tried them on myself (or a mannequin), but all these clothes were really varied in size so that would not have been possible. Instead, I envisioned outfits and arranged appointments with the cast to try on what I had come up with. Some were yet without bottoms but once I had allocated pieces to certain people that would give me a base to continue shopping and find something that would complement it.

Overture costumes
In fashion design, unless you are working with plus sizes it is rare that you work clothing for bigger girls. I know in my previous experience if ever people design things they design them to look good on small sizes (8/10). This meant that this was much more of a challenge. We had a huge mixture of sizes – the smallest being a size UK6 and the largest a UK20. Again, I bore in mind when shopping - I had to consider what the girls would be comfortable in – they are students after all, not practised actors. 

Folies Begere costumes
Once I had done this I took the outfits in for the girls to try on and see what worked and what didn't. It was also a good opportunity to see how the clothes fitted the girls. 

Some needed progress but were a good start... some worked..   but some needed work..
For a final time and I went back to the costume closet and resourced everything I could, plus a few cheeky extras from the market. Some outfits I tried various combinations to see what looked right.

One of the chorus members, Maria, trying on various Gypsy Whore costumes
Next stage was Folies Bergere. I had most of the costume but now I needed the headdresses. I did my research and looked at the styles they use, some of the shapes they create and tried to figure out how the hell you can support something like that on your head. That was going to be the tricky part. I had some ideas. I could use headbands to support the base and create a sturdy curved platform in the centre to use as the base for my construction. With a 20 euro budget for four head pieces, I took to the shops.
I first came across some mini bowler hats with black netting all over and adorned with sparkles and feathers. As it was a shop – my bartering skills could only work so far. I was offered four for a discounted price of 17 euro (they were originally 5 euro each). Knowing this would only leave me with 3 euro to spare, I looked for an alternative. 

I managed to find a smaller equivalent of the hats without the feathers and netting… for 1 euro each. Bargain. Here is what I managed to find- excuse the photo from eBay, I didn't take one myself beforehand.
Using these as a base I bought feathers separately, along with some fabric and managed to create the 5 euro hats for a much lower price of around 1.50 each. Perfect. Then they needed height and extravagance. 


Backstage I had found the most bizzare bright green water fountain plant type thing (sorry I really don’t know how better to describe it than that!). I had a vision it would create a most amazing headpiece so with that in mind for one of the hats I decided to go for three other similar plant decorative items to make the others. The colours would never work and they would look incredibly cheap so I used 5 euro from my budget to buy a fantastic chrome spray paint. (only then did I realise how fun spray painting is)

Spray painting is incredibly fun
My favourite of all the slightly ridiculous things was the windmill. The flower on the far left was originally one of those things you stand in your garden so that when the wind blows it flies around.


Tea and fag on hand for intense working









Now I had my biggest challenge… making these wearable. Not only wearable – danceable..

The first one I began making I used the lighter bits I had brought. I thought that this would allow me to start with something easier and learn more efficient ways of balancing. Here is one mid progress. I know, another awful photo. I WILL learn to record things properly.



Me giving the headdress a test-run
Once I had my first piece I fixed two extra flaps coming from the bowler hat to create more balance on the head. It was similar to a head band but made from stiffened fabric. This was so you could slide hair clips onto it and hold onto the head better. I designed them so that the clips would be facing the other way to the crocodile clips already fixed underneath the hat. 

Hat design to keep them on the head

Tuesday 8 April 2014

We will create beauty

After weeks of pre-production preparation and panic we have finally arrived at the big day everybody is has been working their socks off for. Tonight at John Cabot University, an international university here in Rome, we will be performing our opening show of 'Nine'.

It's tense, exciting and nerve racking before a show. I can't speak for myself as an actor (god knows how terrified they must be!) however nerves do still creep up when you're up in that little magic tech box above the audience. A skill I have learnt here at the theatre is how to operate light and sound boards and so this has recently been my responsibility during the show - and I really enjoy it (AND get to see the show!)

Initially I would have expected to be backstage with the actors so that I could help them into their costumes and ensure that they are ready to go - however, with a role elsewhere this has meant I have instilled a confidence in them to dress themselves and help each other. I actually think this has worked out for the best. I'm not backstage fussing over them, perfecting every crease and ruffle and i'm sure it's as satisfying for me as it is to them when they come out looking fabulous.

Here's a sneak-peek photo of the Folies Bergere song from last nights dress rehearsal:



"We will create beauty"