One month ago, a week prior to the first rehearsal of Sherlock Holmes Meets the Bully of Baker Street, I wrote a post about revision. One of the major, last-minute changes to the script involved changing Miss Barnaby from a glowering headmistress, someone along the line of Mathilda’s Miss Trunchbull, into the young Miss Barnaby, left the run the orphanage while the headmaster is off “on holiday.”
Still aggressive and domineering, making the main “bully” of the tale a peer of the protagonist Vicky (hopefully) makes the conflict more accessible to young audiences. But, it also meant that our costume designer, Zack Hickle, needed to come up with a quick fix.
As you can see from his original rendering (right) Miss Barnaby looks quite severe in her red work smock, and her big poofy shoulders. But it wouldn’t exactly be appropriate for a “head girl,” an underling who has been put in charge of her peers.
So Zack removed the sleeves and skirting from her jacket, still providing Miss Barnaby with a smart, blood red vest, and Khaki, the actress, has been provided with a fine red wig instead of a gray one. Her exposed, white shirtsleeves still feature the big shoulders of the original design.
Nick Chokan, Annie & Khaki Hermann
Pictured right, Miss Barnaby menaces little Annie. Zack also designed the dress and built the puppet (voiced and operated by Nick Chokan.)
This is why I do theater. The collaborative process, the give and take. The openness of one artist to accommodate a suggested change in direction from another artist. I reimagined a character based on suggestion, a designer reimagined a design to accommodate that.
Today we open, this morning for a crowd of fifth graders in Elyria, this evening for a public audience comprised, I imagine, largely of adults. There is a lot of audience interaction in this one, and I am very excited to see how the actors work with the audience!
The Cleveland Shakespeare Festival has to perform in a wide variety of spaces, from plain, grass fields to brick plazas, with audiences seated all on the same level as the company, or looking up at a stage. There are two large tents, situated stage left and right, that act as a backstage area for the performers.
It is because of these variances and limitations that I prefer to have absolutely no set. I will be honest, whenever I have seen CSF use a set, I have found it an unpleasing distraction from whatever the unique backdrop of wherever the show is being presented, whether that be a college building, a bandshell or chain link fence.
For Henry VIII we used one piece of furniture; a blue, plastic waiting room chair, for exactly one scene.
Timon of Athens did have a marvelous set piece, a large refreshment tray, covered with snacks and drinks and festooned with a large fraternity logo. It remained onstage for half the show, when Timon was in town and throwing parties, and wheeled off for the second half when he had abandoned civilization for the woods.
Henry VIII (Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, 2012)
Instead, I always want to costumes to be the set. The costumes are vitally important to instantly communicate character, and to transport the audience to a specific time or place.
The costume designer for Troilus & Cressida, Jenniver Sparano, has heard this before. She joked with that “no ever ever says they don’t want costumes, that they want the set to tell the whole story.” So be it! When I heard Jenniver was going to be working on this production, I was so delighted. I am happy to have been dressed by her in the past, she’s an outstanding designer with great attention to detail.
Of course, I have been very happy with each of the costume designers I have worked with through CSF. I appreciate how challenging it can be to create or procure costumes for a large company on a modest budget. For Henry VIII I asked designer Heather Brown for modern suits for men and women that communicated wealth and power, and that is exactly when she provided.
Brinden as Troilus
Meg Parish created a perfect year 1970 college campus look for the company of Timon of Athens, which was complimented by a team of actors willing to let their hair grow out for part of the summer.
Troilus & Cressida, a tale of the Trojan War, has been updated to take place ten years ago, during the waning months of a conflict which will be visually familiar to our audience. Jenniver has gone so far as to create stitched name tags for each of the Greek officers. The company looks outstanding, and they have been inspired by their costumes.
I am trying to write an essay on adaptation. Perhaps you have heard this apocryphal story, attributed to Michelangelo.
The apprentice asked how the master was able to take a formless marble slab and transform it into something as soul-touchingly beautiful as David.
Michelangelo took a drag on his cigarette and said, "Chip away anything that doesn't look like David."
With The Secret Adversary I have had a second opportunity to tell the story of an entire novel with one set and five actors. Writing the script I tried not to concern myself with the set - at all - but I did need to think about the players, and how many would be able to appear on stage at the same time.
Surprisingly, this book was much more challenging that The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in spite of the fact that I had limited two of my actors (myself and James) to play one character each, James as the narrator Hastings, who barely leaves the stage, and myself as Poirot. One actor played the other three other male characters.
left to right: Ray Caspio as Boris Stepanov, Brittni Shambaugh as Rita Vandermeyer, James Rankin as Mister Carter Design by Esther Haberlen
But Adversary just has so many characters, it was challenging to narrow it down. Putting the pieces together, I tried not to think very much about how fast the actors would need to change behind the set. In fact, I was so negligent that up until today I still had a scene in which Ray would enter with a gun in Ray's ribs.
The thing about Styles is that if there are too few characters, there are too few suspects. I like to think I struck a decent balance there, and was able to maintain Christie's mystery until the last few moments.
Adversary isn't really a mystery, though there is a major reveal, though for most of the tale it is pretty obvious that if "Mister Brown" exists, he is one, the other (or both?) of two characters. The story is an international thriller, with the protagonists getting into and out of scrapes, flying entirely by their wits.
I had to chip away anything that wasn't a one-hour play, but not too much that it was no longer The Secret Adversary.
Thankfully, we once again have the great joy of working with Esther, who not only has a great love of the period (England "between the wars") but also a tremendous talent at creating fabulous looks actors can slip in and out of with great speed.
British Intelligence, Member of Parliament, ageing socialite, American millionaire, Russian royalty, German Bolshevik, Cockney thug ... and that's maybe half of them.
Rehearsals keeping moving forward, and as we add layer upon layer of business, our three gentlemen just soak it up and grow and grow.
Bizarre accents? Sure, no problem. By the end of the 1613 scene you will wonder why Shakespeare isn't always spoken like this.
Big dance number? No problem. They can do that, too.
Right now we are incorporating the numerous costume changes into the production. Esther has made herself available to witness and assist, as decisions are made as to what is and is not possible in, say, a six-second costume change.
How about a little tune to cover your costume change?
Tomorrow sound designer Richard Ingraham will begin to incorporate sound cues. I LOVE sound design! It's all becoming one rich tapestry of music and noise and history and humor.
The Great Globe Itself takes place onstage, on one stage, on the stage of the Globe Theatre. However, not just one Globe Theatre, but three. Our performers are in and out of costume during three time periods - the early 17th, 20th and 21st centuries. So there are costumes, and costumes on costumes.
Four our first scene, designer Esther Haberlen presents our theater artists in accurate, everyday Jacobean garb. Richard Burbage (left) the great actor, looks fine and strong, while John Fletcher (right) - the poet - appears a bit nerdy.
Turning to 1936, Esther has reproduced the early 20th century idea of what Americans thought a Shakespearean production was supposed to look like. King Henry VIII (left) is dressed sumptuously, but his guard (right) looks like he has been drawn from a deck of cards.
The virile Mark Antony is decked in a breastplate out of something like the silent film version of Ben-Hur.
In our modern era, when we freely adapt our Shakespeare any which way, our Prospero has been provided a flowing wizard's robe, in white white white.
Finally, the performers our performers play, when they are not performing the plays within the play, appear in period street clothes (left to right, 1936 and 2005).
Tonight our acting company will have its first complete read-through of the script - rehearsal don't even begin for a couple of weeks. And yet, this is how far out ahead Esther is with her work on the production. Doesn't it all look amazing?
Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick) was written to be a prequel to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. It was my intent that it be reasonably and justifiably be considered an explanation of events which preceded Shakespeare's work, that nothing contradicts what comes later (unlike, say, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)
With Seven Ages, we harbor no such pretensions. In devising a premise - time, place, characters - I told our playwrights that our scene rests somewhere in Act II of As You Like It, between scenes six and seven. I provided a general sense of who the four characters are who will be telling these tales, and that we would choose as time period the date in which the Bard's play was written, Fifteen Ninety-Nine.
But don't search too hard for continuity. Later in As You Like It, Jacques and Rosalind (as Ganymede) appear to be meeting for the first time, and unfamiliar with each other. It doesn't matter, we are not trying to expand upon the narrative of Shakespeare's play. It is a device through which four people tell stories inspired by the seven ages of man.
Set as it is, in one place, at one time, our costume designer Esther decided upon a period look, which is to say, the period in which it is set. Pretty novel, right? For Double Heart she took inspiration from Branagh's film version of Much Ado, or at least the time period, eighteenth century, rather than sixteenth, and there was a very good reason for that. They were colorful. If she had gone with sixteenth century Italian military wear and women's attire, things would have been very brown, and the ladies outfits restricting, which was not conducive to our youthful, racy love story.
The Tempest
Time and again a vocal minority of audience members lament that this company or that company (nearly every company, really) never performs Shakespeare "the way it is meant to be performed" meaning in Elizabethan dress. Time and again this does happen, however, though I do not know if they actually notice it (Great Lakes Theater's 2007 production of The Tempest was period, though I don't think that had any impact on ticket sales) but should all Shakespearean productions be in period costumes? Wouldn't that get a little boring? Besides, it is also very expensive to create and keep costumes from that period. The dresses are HUGE.
Having said that, Esther has designed and her company have built beautiful Elizabethan costumes for Seven Ages. I love what I get to wear, with a marvelous fur-collared cape and matching doublet, and I am even more taken with our Ganymede and his/her stylish green doublet and pants with golden slashes and accents.
Then there is a codpiece, which, once you have seen it ... you cannot stop seeing.
Tonight was a big, exciting night! There were racks of costumes waiting for us, and we tried on everything. Also, too: this show is a romance, yes it is. And that means dancing. Choreographer Carli Taylor-Miluk arrived and we spent the night merrily learning folk dance moves and creating our the saturnalia gay to celebrate the soldiers, or what have you, does there really need to be a reason for a party?
Costumes for Double Heart are designed by Great Lakes Theater costume shop manager Esther Haberlen, who is all kinds of totally damnright awesome. Let me tell the story again, for those not paying attention ...
We first collaborated for the tour of On the Dark Side of Twilight, which had a cast of three actors who, over the course of one hour, play twelve characters. The story spans 200 years, and so the challenge was to create a wide variety of historical looks, that in many cases looked expensive and chic, and could be thrown on and off in a manner of seconds, with or without assistance.
From "On the Dark Side of Twilight" The Count, upstaged by a dress.
I'm not even going to mention how incredible the wigs are. Esther has designed every tour since, including last year's Mysterious Affair at Styles, though I did grow and maintain my own mustache.
For Double Heart, our two protagonists, Beatrice and Benedick, wear (mostly) the same thing throughout. However, I have the dubious honor of playing four characters, and in some cases I must walk off as one and right back on as another. My pain is Esther's pain.
Who wrote this thing?
Don Pedro: upstanding officer
Did I mention the hats? The hats are just outstanding. I get to wear that hat!
Just a little background ... Double Heart, as written, takes place in the mid-16th century, some fifteen years or so before the events of Much Ado About Nothing. At that time, Italy was still largely a number of city-states, and had recently gone from French "protectorate" to that of Spain. Part of the story involves a large and successful sea battle against the Ottoman empire, part of series of military events which lead, eventually, to the idea of Italy as a single nation.
However, as Esther informed me, the dress at that time was a great deal less colorful, and for the purposes of our production she moved her design two hundred years later. Part of that inspiration came from Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film version, which is also modeled on Italy of the 18th century.
This is where I discuss history or the work. If you want to know about my mental health, you can visit the running blog. However, on occasion, the heart affects the work in such a way that writing about it becomes compromised.
It should suffice to say that everything that is current troubling the little world inside my head could be calmed in a moment through a) communication and b) a little kindness. To that end I have made a habit of not commenting on every single thing someone else says on Facebook.
Yesterday, we celebrated the conclusion of another successful school year with the Great Lakes Theater School Residency Program. This annual ritual, bidding farewell to fond co-workers for the season, falling as it has the past several years on the day after Memorial Day, serves as an unofficial opening to Summer.
GLT 2011-2012 Actor-Teachers
School is winding down for my children, which is not without its share of tremors. Living in Cleveland Heights, having school-age children is never without its share of disturbances. But at least we can rest in the knowledge that the schedule for the summer is already packed with camps and road trips and, unlike the summers of my youth, no one will cry I'M BORED. As usual, they will probably be crying I'M TIRED.
Last night, Elaine visited rehearsals for Henry VIII to help guide and shape the song. Her presence was relaxing but also very focused. I got to just sit there, listen and nod my big bald head.
It was not my intention to put an entire song into this production. The Queen requests a melody to put her heart at ease. So, do we use Shakespeare-Fletcher's period lyrics? No, probably not. Songs are to entertain, not educate, and I did not want something arcane to bust up the contemporary flow.
So, do we use something from the Queen, this Queen's childhood? From the 1970s, perhaps, the greatest album of songs about betrayal and infidelity, Fleetwod Mac's Rumours was the soundtrack to third grade for me, and a template for interpersonal relationships. You think the kids today have it bad listening to Adele?
Scene from Cole Cuts (1998) featuring Elaine Feagler. Song can take you higher.
But that would make the songs just some kind of arch joke. There is a great deal of archery in this production of Henry VIII, but it wouldn't be appropriate there. Something sincere. And sincere, on stage, needs to be big. It needs to go on long enough to get past the a-ha, I see what you did there stage. And so. An entire song (and it's not Fleetwood Mac.)
How to perform an entire song, in an office setting, with four voices? Well, you will simply have to attend and see how well we do.
Costumer Heather arrived on Monday night with racks and racks of costumey goodness! In her delirium, the Queen has a vision of the six wives of Henry VIII (she is the first.) I asked for wedding dresses. Heather brought in maybe a dozen. For real! Some twelve big-ass, whitey-white-white wedding dresses. This is delirious vision thing is going to be awesome.
Whew ... aaaand another stomach-turning mood swing successfully navigated. See you at rehearsal.
