Between all the meetings, teaching that takes twice as long, fires to put out, worry for the industry, and worry for the future, I've actually had a sliver of much needed creativity. Our productions are all scaled down of course- there have been budget cuts and heart breaking staff furloughs; we have a ton of protocols for how to conduct an in person fitting (which is just shy of throwing the clothes at the performer and running); every show must be short in length to allow for short rehearsals and room rest. BUT, even on zoom, it has been a joy to talk about characters and looks, and then reframe our choices as needed based on our resources. The first show in production will be a filmed version of Chay Yew's, A Beautiful Country. This was one of the three cancelled shows last spring. It will be a combination of masked performers in the theatre, digital art that would have been projected, some record-from-home scenes, and a couple of mask-less scenes (with only 1 performer and camera operator 30' away), all edited together and ready to drop the first week of November. I haven't been working on this one directly, but have been amazed by the shop, and can't wait to see it all come together.
I just got off a zoom rehearsal of the musical theatre department's concert they'll be releasing later this fall. For this, I'm really just serving in an advisory role to help pull a few items from our stock or consult on something from their closets. But I've got to say, it was really powerful to see their talent, energy, and creativity. Everyone is getting a bit more acclimated to the camera and there are some really powerful performances in development.
Last Thursday, I was actually in a rehearsal, for an opera, after having meetings, and fittings, and all the normal things we do, except 6' apart and in a mask. I'm designing two newer chamber operas, All Wounds Bleed and The Daughters of the Bloody Duke. After meeting on zoom, I finally met the director, Abbigail Cote, in person and we were both a little giddy about it. Everything has been pulled from our stock, but one idea we explored was a way to really own the presentational performance style by incorporating the masks in an obvious way. All Wounds Bleed is the Narcissus myth, so I looked at Ancient Greek theatre masks. Even though the clothes are vaguely Early Renaissance, I kept the style of the masks, printed them out, laminated each one, and rigged it with elastic to serve as sort of a paper wig/mask. I used the same treatment for Daughters, which is a dark comedy melodrama, using Victorian paper masks as the inspiration. I surprised myself- it's actually working! Because I couldn't get close to fit them, I made the singers a little video. Last week we tested a proof of concept and now I'm going to reprint everything, tweak the scale, and make them double sided and stronger logistically. It's so nice to be in a theatre again, even if it's all so very weird.
