My role in our original musical ‘The Turning’ was costume and makeup design. I chose to take on this role as I have prior experiences working with wigs, hair, and makeup and general character design. The bulk of my work took place towards the end of the project as I was not involved with the early stages of the creative process.
We initially started with a rough idea of a show: a comedy musical about vampires living amongst humans in modern society inspired by the series ‘What We Do In The Shadows’. My involvement in the early stages of the process was mainly helping others brainstorm or give feedback on ideas or physical material people had come up with. For example I did research into various periods of time closely related to vampires, such as the romantic period. This research was partly to find inspiration that the writers could use to create and develop the characters, but mostly to learn about popular fashion during those periods, and how I could blend it with modern-day, gothic clothing. I think my part in the process was one of the final pieces in the show’s development, primarily because in order to start designing costumes for a specific character or show, that show and those characters had to exist. I could come up with as many vampiric design concepts as I wanted but without the rough script I couldn’t really properly set anything.
I was able to properly get started on designs about a month or so before our research and development week was due to start. When I was coming up with ideas for the costumes I had to take several things into account. My main obstacle was the fact that as this was a student led R&D project we had no budget, this meant that for the actual sharing I would have to rely on the items of clothing my cast mates already owned because anything else would have to be bought with funding we didn’t have. I had come up with several concept designs that ultimately went unused due to this. Another obstacle that coincided with this was that we didn’t really have the full cast in one space until we started our rehearsal/R&D week. While we did have means of communication online, mainly a couple of group chats, the space was primarily for sharing progress on the development of scripts and music, or sorting out scheduling for the upcoming R&D week. Due to these factors the bulk of my contribution to the process started a lot further down the line than most of my peers as most of them had tasks that were primarily focused on the creation of new material, Whereas mine unfortunately heavily relied on the work of other people within my group.
The research and development week was probably the most crucial part of our creative process as it allowed people to see the work they had created being physicalised, making it a lot easier to refine. We spent the early stages of the week learning and going over the material as along with experimenting with and staging the piece. Most of us would be performing in the show along with being a part of the creative team (aside from two people who wrote the script. One spent the week editing and doing admin, the other was directing and staging scenes). The physicalisation of the script really helped me as it allowed me to get a much clearer picture of the characters and energy within the show.
I took inspiration from various pieces of history, media and fashion subcultures when creating ideas for the costumes. One piece of media that heavily inspired my work was The Addams Family, specifically the costumes from the 1991 film designed by Ruth Myers. For example, I had several ideas surrounding a character from The Turning, Ambrosia. I had always likened her to Morticia Addams and my plans for her costume reflected that. I was particularly inspired by this quote from Ruth Myers, shared with ELLE Magazine ” I aways had this fantasy that Morticia… would have a day dress, [a] dress for the afternoon, and a dress for dinner. It was always the same silhouette, but there were slightly more subdued ones for the morning. By the afternoon, she was getting more exotic and by the evening, she was a peacock encrusted in jet and beautiful lace.” I was drawn to the overall look of the Addams Family as it is so cohesive, yet consistantly individual and characterised. At first glance they all look rather uniform, mainly due to the simple monochrome colour palette. But when you look at each individual person they had very specific styles the relected them as characters, like the alluring silhouette of Morticia’s dresses mentioned previously. One of my goals for this project was to achieve a similar look with our ensemble.
The R&D week was a crucial part of the creative process for me. As this was the final week of our project, things were finally being set. We had finalised who was playing what role, the amount of dancing or movement that was required, and what exactly we wanted to show. This was essential for me as I needed to know what people were going to be doing and how that could potentially affect the costuming.
While the week was an essential part of the development process it did come with its challenges, mine mainly being that my role was slowly being taken over by other people involved in the project. The biggest example of this was one of the creatives was tasked with the role of helping flesh out the characters, giving them more backstory like their country of origin, when they became a Vampire, their relationships within their unit, and so on. While they did complete this task, they actually went even further and started coming up with character and costume designs and instructing me to look at their work and follow what they’d come up with. This was particularly irritating as my role within the show had been decided from the first week and due to a communication issue within our team, both of us had done this work that was the responsibility of one person initially. Later on in the week another person was leading a discussion about the sharing at the end of the week when the topic of costumes came up. As I was not the director or leading the meeting in any way I held back and waited for the question to go to me, however this ultimately didnt happen as the director started giving people rough instructions on what to bring. They were quickly stopped by another team member and the question was then redirected to me.
Despite these issues, I think that the end result for the costumes and makeup turned out rather well considering the limited resources at our disposal. While not every costume was exactly what I had envisioned for the show they all turned out surprisingly well. We collectively decided that black was the best fit for the show but people could basically whatever they thought fit their character. Some of my favourite examples of this were: The classic vampire cape worn by Igor (see figure 1), a camp choice of costume for a camp character; the copious amounts of fake blood worn by Gerald (see figure 2), the most unhinged of the three main ensemble vampires; the touch of navy blue in Flora’s costume to show how she isn’t quite a vampire yet (see figure 3), and the black and white stockings for Camilla (which were not clearly captured), just because I think they fit the general aesthetic quite well.The makeup was also a success, we decided on pale faces, dark eyes, and red lips to fit the classic vampire look. In summary I think that I acheived the look I aimed to create for the show despite the issues that cropped up during the process.
I think our main weakness as a team was definetly the communication. It sometimes felt like a struggle for power when multiple people were working in the same space, cast changes and alterations weren’t properly communicated, and, in my opinion, it felt like certain people thought of their role in the project was more important and tried to dominate the Space.I think if we were to go through this process again this would be the main thing I would improve. I believe our team definetly would’ve benefitted with one line of clear-cut communication instead of mulitple group chats across different apps, this would’ve most likely prevented the mix ups we had throughout the week and a generally less stressful work for most of us.Overall, I think our development process went quite smoothly despite some hiccups here and there. We were able to have a successful sharing at the end of our R&D week that showcased our musical rather well.
bibliography
Addams, C., Thompson, C. and Wilson, L. (1991). The Addams Family. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101272/.
Sandoval, M. (2021). The Addams Family 30th Anniversary: Costume Legacy. [online] The Art of Costume. Available at: https://theartofcostume.com/2021/11/22/the-addams-family-30th-anniversary-costume-legacy/.
