Methods of an Addicted Costume Designer

Contributed by Viviane Galloway

The other day I went to the website of an OOB theater company that had received a tremendous amount of press for a recent production. Being a fellow costume designer, I wanted to see who had designed the costumes for this production. It didn't surprise me that none of the posted reviews of the production mentioned any of the design elements—set, lighting, props, costumes, sound--but it shocked me that nowhere on that website did the theater company itself mention who had designed their productions. There were plenty of beautiful production photos and headshots of every actor, but it was as if the designers didn't exist or were of little consequence to the ultimate success of the production!
 
 
Now, I happen to know that this particular theater company actually thinks very highly of its design team. But it occurred to me that if this oversight could be made by a theater company itself, that there may be a lot of people, both in the audience and working in theater, who are not quite sure what we designers really do. Because space is so expensive and so scarce in this city, we don't have the experience of seeing each other every day at the theater. I can't run up from my costume shop to pop into rehearsal. I talk to the Stage Manager mostly by email. It takes me longer to bond and earn the trust of the actors. The irony is that although I love what I do because of the community, I actually spend a large portion of the process on my own. So, what exactly do I do? Well, let me tell you. . .

I spend a LOT of time on research. Just living in New York is research! Every day I walk by amazing architecture, see new art and the latest fashions, commute through culturally diverse neighborhoods. You see pretty much everything in New York if you keep your eyes open. In addition we have all the museums, the Historic Society, and the largest library system I've ever used. I usually bombard my director with a plethora of images from all these sources and more. With an average production schedule of four weeks, things are usually moving too fast for me to do renderings, but I'll sketch things out, or I develop a look-book for each character (especially if I will be shopping for costumes and can't be sure I'll find exactly the same thing as what I may have sketched.) I read the play a lot. I read it out loud for myself, I make notes, I close my eyes and go through different scenes in my head. At rehearsals I talk to the actors about their characters, and observe their style—how physically active are they? Are they connecting with their costumes or feeling constrained by them? I love to bounce ideas off the actors when I can—if they are excited about my design then I know I'm on the right track.

I am a whiz now at planning my production schedule around major holidays. Many of the big thrift stores have sales on those days. Also, when I shop I keep my eye out for the colored tag that is discounted that day. I'm fun to travel with: “Yes, I'd love to go to Rhode Island with you this weekend, if you don't mind stopping at all the thrift stores in that area.” Most indie-theater companies don't have the luxury of keeping a lot of (or any) costumes, but I have a storage unit, which allows me to hoard costumes. So I usually spend a day or two going through my own stock.

And I spend a lot of time just building costumes and pulling everything together in my studio at home. Construction, alterations, trim. . . this usually all happens in a matter of days. I lug everything to rehearsal, do fittings, watch rehearsal if I can, and then I take everything back home and do more alterations, add more trim, and on a rare occasion, start all over!

Given the fast pace, tight budgets, and crazy logistical issues involved with independent theater, life can get stressful. Every time I design a show, at some point—usually about a week before First Dress—I go into my husband's office in tears, and I say . . . “I'll never finish. . .” “I'm too old for this. . . .” “Don’t ever let me do this ever again. . . “He makes the appropriate sympathetic and encouraging remarks, but I swear that when I leave to go back into my studio I hear him chuckling. He seemed startled the first and second time I did this, but after a while he has learned that soon I'll be on that high again from seeing my costumes on the stage, seeing how they work with the set and the lighting and hearing from the actors how they feel in them. Then the show goes up and I find out if my costumes really tell the story that I wanted them to tell.

That is why I do it, because my art is my voice, my way of telling a story, of expressing myself and how I feel about a particular issue or situation. The fact that I get to do this within an amazing community of artists, and the opportunity to collaborate with so many really talented artists and make lasting friendships, makes it all worthwhile.----------------------------------------------------------

Viviane Galloway is a New York based costume designer. Her credits include Pygmalion and Mother Courage (Jean Cocteau Rep.); Mrs. California , Dear Ruth, The Baltimore Waltz and The Butter and Egg Man (Retro Productions); and The Tempest, Happy End, The Cradle Will Rock, Candide and A Little Night Music (Theater 2020). Viviane has been nominated for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards for Outstanding Costume Design for The Desk Set (Retro Productions, 2010) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theater 2020, 2013). Viviane also frequently designs at The 52nd St. Project, a program that works with kids to create original productions, and would encourage all of you to get involved as well!!! www.costumegal.nyc

Self-help and the OOB theatre artist

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, David Johnston

I read an article in The New Yorker last week. It was about that
self-help book, “The Secret,” one of those books that teaches you to
“think” yourself rich, you’re an amazing creature, God wants you to
have nice stuff, etc etc. It’s a very popular book. I’ve never read
it. To be honest, self-help books annoy the crap out of me. Their
aura of smugness puts me right off. Sometimes people are sitting in
cars and a tree falls on them, and impoverished children in other
countries starve to death or die in floods, and it’s distasteful to
sit in our fat wealthy country and chalk it up to “negative thinking”
on the part of the victim.

But this New Yorker article also dealt with some of the backlash from
this book. (Hooray! Backlash!) Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her new
book, “Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America”
(which I also have not read) how books like “The Secret” offend her,
too. What offends her is the notion that “poverty is a voluntary
condition.” I’d probably like Barbara Ehrenreich.

But it got me to thinking about those of us who work in Off Off
Broadway in New York. We work in an impoverished field. We don’t have
money and we certainly don’t have nice stuff. We’re passionately
devoted to an art form that the overwhelming majority of people in
this country couldn’t care less about. I don’t have the stats right
here. It’s early in the morning, and I’m drinking coffee and my
wireless keeps going out because the neighbors keep changing their
password. So I’m not going to look it up right now. Plus, I’ve got
to go to the post office and send off this application that I’ve been
putting off. God, I need a few days to catch up on everything. Where
was I? Oh yeah. We’re negligible in terms of cultural impact, and
most people think we should really stop this and get a job.

But we work hard and we do it because we love it and we think we have
something to say or we have an idea. It’s a good role, someone’s
going to give us a break on the space, the script isn’t perfect but
the writer needs a production and how’s he going to learn otherwise?
It’s tough and heartbreaking and the rewards are small. But if my
lips twitch in anger in a Barnes and Noble as I pass by racks and
racks of “The Secret,” it’s because I’m saying to the writer, “Nobody
chose this poverty. We live in a system. We love this art form, this
discipline. We also live in a society that doesn’t value it. We
didn’t make that. But we don’t see any reason to stop doing what we
love just because a society or political system is indifferent.”

Yes, I frequently stop in the stacks at Barnes and Noble and have
conversations with the author who isn’t there. Don’t judge.

So this week, folks, when the world around says “you need to think
like a business,” or “you would have more money and resources if you
adjusted your attitude” or “have you thought about law school?” – the
everlasting chorus of “no” that surrounds you whenever you try to
create something – this week, dear reader, I hereby give you (and
myself) permission to cut a break. Give a pat on the back. Thank all
the negating voices for their time and tell them you will keep them on
file for the next project.

You’re doing just fine. Keep doing what you do. The world around us
is what needs fixing.

David J

Curtain

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

     Hello, all. Thank you for reading my blogs this week. I have had a number of responses on this site and via personal email. It means so much to me that the good folks at IT asked me to participate, and I appreciate your reading my thoughts, rants, and manifestos.  This last blog will be basically a list. I found myself inspired by a previous blog writer (Tim Errickson) who posted a blog titled Mailbag!, which was a series of questions and answers.

First OOB experience:
My play Cookies was produced during The Riant Theatre’s Summer 2002 Strawberry One-Act Festival. I had a few readings between 2000-2001, but this was my first production. I ended up participating with the SOAF a handful of times. On Top was a semi-finalist; A Play About a Guitar (retitled “Resonator Blues”) was also a semi-finalist; Goodnight Lovin’ Trail, my MFA thesis,was a finalist in 2004. So, I owe a debt to The Riant Theatre (Artistic Director Van Dirk Fisher), and director Dennis Wayne Gleason for believing in my work.

Inspiration:
Mostly music. I go to a lot of concerts. In Louisiana, I’ve seen a number of Zydeco bands as well as Taj Mahal, Philip Glass, and Ani Difranco. In NY, I was able to catch David Johansen and the Harry Smiths a few times. I miss The Bottom Line.  My favorite song by DJ is “Heart of Gold” (available on his second post New York Dolls album and his first Buster Poindexter record), not to be confused with Neil Young’s song, which is also excellent. And of course I was also able to catch Tom Waits, The Pixies, David Byrne, Iggy and the Stooges, and Ani Difranco. I guess I’m an audiophile at heart.

Family:
Several people have asked how I balance work and family. I just do. If you want a career in theatre, academics, and academic theatre you need to find a balance. If you have a family on top of that, you just make it all work. It helps to have an awesome wife like Danielle and a great little boy like Danny.

Favorite OOB production:
Really hard to say.  The ones I’ve seen have been wonderful. There were also a handful I missed because I’m down here in Louisiana.  I’m really sorry to have missed As we Speak  and Trickster at the Gate. Tom Berger and Dan Horrigan are both terrific guys, and I feel a pang of guilt whenever I think of how I missed these productions.  I’m also sorry to say I missed a reading of Liner Notes directed by Marc Eardley featuring the excellent Jerry Zellers. The last one I worked on (and I was actually able to see) was Hound with Rachel Klein, and it was really fantastic. I’m looking forward to Liner Notes with the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

Do’s:
Read. Read plays, read scholarship, just read. And improvise! Life and writing rely heavily on improvisation. Try new things!

Don’t’s:
Don’t ignore critics, neither the ones who love you nor the ones who wish you’d go away. It’s important to be a part of the critic/artist conversation, no matter how painful.

Favorite current scholarship:
The American Play by Marc Robinson.
Postdramatic Theatre by Hans-Thies Lehmann.
Spalding Gray’s America by William Demastes.
Being Given by Jean Luc-Marion
Ethics and Infinity by Emmanuel Levinas

Current favorite plays:
The Sea Farer by Conor Macpherson
The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel
Self Defense or Death of Some Salesmen by Carson Kreitzer
Two Small Bodies by Neal Bell

Other Advice:
Listen to music. Eat bagels. (I was a bagel-baker at the New Paltz Bagel Café in New Paltz, NY for six and a half years. Great place, great people!  There’s a shout out for ya.) Read opinions that you agree with. Read opinions that you don’t agree with. Be responsible for who you are, and take responsibility for what you see, even if you believe it has nothing to do with you.  Oh, and listen to Ani Difranco.

Thanks, all for reading!  Keep believing in independent theatre.  I think we’re a part of a major cultural turn. Check out this article by Stephen Leigh Morris called “Why Theatre Matters.” See? We’re seriously onto something most excellent!

Slainte,
JpB

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Do we see theatre anymore?

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Jillian Zeman.

I don’t know if anyone else feels this way, or if this is true for anyone else, but I really don’t go to theatre much anymore. Not because I don’t enjoy it, not because there isn’t anything I want to see… but time. My show is usually on the same schedule as everything else and unfortunately I can’t exactly put in for a personal day to take in a show.

Tonight was treat. I actually got to watch a show. And it wasn’t one I was training on; it was out of pure enjoyment and, well, time. My current show is in Raleigh, NC and right next door in Durham was the national tour of Wicked. I’ve never seen it before (yes, I know most of your jaws all dropped… a New Yorker of 7 years, working in theatre hasn’t seen Wicked?!)

The production was amazing, and there were moments where I was looking around going “how did they do that?” I’ve had those moments with OOB as well, most recently with

APAC’s production of The Pillowman directed by Tom Wojtunik. Now here’s the difference, this show had a budget of who knows how much, and OOB has a strict budget. I think what is most remarkable is that on the larger big-budget productions you have an idea of how they made something work, but didn’t know the specifics (and granted, I’m speaking of theatre people who know what to look for during those special effect moments). However, on the OOB productions the designers have to bring a level of creativity to make the magic happen on a much tighter budget. I love sitting in a theatre and analyzing how a special effect happened. It’s moments like this that I’m so proud to work in OOB. It may not have the budgets that the larger productions do, but we have just as much, if not more creativity and talent to put on display.

Maintaining ensembles

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Brad Burgess.

Yesterday, Judith was talking to John Strasberg in her apartment about the highest artistic aim of maintaining an ensemble. I’m glad I did not write the blog yesterday, even though it was completely unintentional. Sometimes things just workout I guess. It ain’t called The Living Theatre for nothing! haha, Come on down to Clinton Street if you haven’t, this place is out of this world let me tell you. Never know what you are going to find.

Anywho, this blog is gladly stealing from those two technique tycoons and their minds who have been developing ensembles with their legacies for well over 100 years combined. Holy moly is right.

A true ensemble has one essential quality that cannot be taught or come from natural talent: they know each other. Being on stage with Judith during The Connection, we had a whole personal relationship to draw on. She’s my roommate, she’s my mentor, she’s one of my best friends. We share almost everyday with one another.

Tom Walker, is a company member of ours who has performed in 39 seasons with The Living Theatre. To put that into perspective, Mickey Mantle played 16 seasons for The New York Yankees. Judith and Tom have been on stage with each other for almost 40 years.

These examples are just a couple of dozens and dozens of similar stories. The profound effect these real relationships have on our ability to make our art together, is very present for us. It’s what makes being a pacifist anarchist political theatre group even possible.

Our art can’t help but manifest itself from these experiences. Our thoughts and feelings as people are developed this way. It makes sense then that our ability to relay translations of reality from the writer/director/actor/thinker as artists and produce something that has a connection to reality that is clear to the audience.

One balance we have is the problem of not being involved enough with our audience, as strange as it sounds. We are such a culture unto ourselves, that we need to be careful to keep our every day reality a part of the culture we are living in. We are very fortunate to be a part of the academic culture, so that much of our audience, theatre students and professionals especially, know something coming into the show about what to expect. Well, in our case I suppose its more of what not to expect.

When I see the experienced ensemble here working together, the company members who have been doing it for 10, 20, 30, 40 or in Judith’s case 65 years, I feel connected to the development of the culture. I see an ability for compromise, an ability to find a common ground, an ability to move forward in the midst of crisis.

I think we are able to accomplish this because we are really able to be who we are to one another. It’s part of the vibe and message from the moment you arrive here, from Judith to the babies that are born into the company. It’s a real family, in all the wonderful clichéd sense of it.

This adds a reality to the work for me personally that I have not been able to find or see in many places other than the theatre community at large. I think the connection we have to each other here at The Living Theatre, but also industry wide helps us communicate and relate to people who love their friends and families. That’s most people in the world.

It’s certainly not always perfect as again is the norm, but I feel theatre and its ensemble nature can be a real example for societal structuring. People should be working together with people they love on something they care about that says what they believe, in their deepest, and most elevated selves. Hopefully our work as an artistic community is doing so. I believe it is in this city.

Happy World Theatre Day!

BB

And a Child Shall Lead Them

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Doric Wilson.


The last mentor I focus on may seem a bit odd. One assumes that to be a mentor, wisdom and age is essential. But to teach an old dog sometimes you need a new trickster. About ten years ago I went hear pianist Ellen Starr in a club on 46 Street. Jazz singer Robert Locke invited me to join his table, and introduced me to Mark Finley. I met Mark when I had completely given up
on theatre. I had vowed that the next off-off-Broadway production I would participate in would be my funeral. But we started talking and by osmosis he eventually taught me to see again.

I am four times Mark’s age (if he is to be believed) and however smart and talented he is, the jury may still be out when it comes to wisdom. I have no idea how many people have directed my plays over the years, but no one has ever given them more honest productions, including me. What stands out in Mark Finley's work is an ability to zero in on the tone of a script and to cast it flawlessly. He then stands back and lets it blossom. In fact his perfect casting may be the root of his genius. His productions seem inevitable. He also is a wise (ha! There’s the Wisdom!) and wry playwright. And an excellent actor. And the least convincing drag performer in the entire history of transvestism.

Lorraine Larson shaped my mind to creative possibilities, Richard Barr taught me how make that imagination a reality, and Mark Finley made me believe again. Because of him I am working on a new play. And to me that is the very essence of Alternative Theater. Creativity, imagination, and belief. I did ultimately make it into those sophisticated drawing rooms. But I didn’t stay all that long. Turns out there were even more rattlesnakes slithering around there than back home in the Gorge.

Saturday, February 20 , after 9 pm, Doric Wilson invites everyone to help him celebrate his 71st th Birthday at a no-host get-together at Zuni (598 9th Ave at 43rd Street). In lieu of presents, Doric requests that friends consider making a small tax-exempt donation to TOSOS.


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No Business Like

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Doric Wilson.


Had I not left school early (so to speak) I never would have walked in the door of the Caffe Cino. It was during the run of And He Made a Her that I met my second most important mentor. Richard Barr was involved with Orson Wells and the Mercury Theater. (He is the first voice you hear in Citizen Kane). After producing on Broadway (Bert Lahr in Hotel Paradiso, Nancy Walker in Fallen Angels, etc.), he decided to move Off-Broadway to, in his words, “Turn the theater back to the playwright.'' In 1960, Richard mounted Edward Albee's first play, The Zoo Story, beginning a long time relationship with the playwright.

He also presented the first American professional productions of works by Ionesco and de Ghelderode and the world premiere of Samuel Becket’s Happy Days. In 1967 he became president of the League of New York Theaters, instituting the 8 pm Broadway curtain and inventing the preview (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf) to replace out-of-town tryouts. But more significantly, he was the first producer to recognize the importance of Off-Off-Broadway. Among the playwrights he found there were John Guare, A. R. Gurney, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Terrence McNally, Sam Shepard, Jean-Claude Van Itallie, Lanford Wilson, and even Doric Wilson (no relation). An alternative theater award really should be named after Richard Barr, no one ever did more to legitimize what we do. He taught me how to produce and gave me the courage to start TOSOS.

I was sort of an unpaid assistant for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and got to watch and learn.
At the time, there was a lot of concern. The play was very long with some heavy going language
new to the delicate ears of uptown. Thanks to the McCarthy hearings, Uta Hagen had been
away from the stage for a long time. In 1963, no one was sure if she would be welcomed back.
A week before it started previews, Clinton Wilder, the co-producer begged me to use whatever
influence I had over Richard to get him to make Edward change the title of the play. Richard
budgeted Virginia Woolf for $65,000 but brought it in for $30,000, giving it a cushion to run long enough for word-of-mouth to counter hostile reviews. And the reviews were very Republican.

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The Letter of the Law

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Doric Wilson.


I have been very lucky when it comes to mentors. Alice Clark (the beautiful lady who lived on the hill), Dorothy Seeburger (president of the Richland Players), Bernie Hart (famous Broadway stage manager and brother of Moss Hart), Harry Grier (curator of the Frick Collection), actress Nancy Wilder (I played older Patrick to her Auntie Mame), Gore Vidal (a person with opinions), Howard Richardson (playwright, The Dark of the Moon), Joe Cino (legend in spite of himself), the list goes on and on. I intend to concentrate on the three most important to where I am now.

It was in Kennewick that I encountered my first mentor. In Minnesota in the early years of the last century, a young woman named Loraine Larson, enrolled in a University Law School. The
dean informed her that no woman would ever graduate from HIS school with a law degree. Four years later after graduating with top honors, she walked back into the dean’s office, tossed her degree on his desk, and walked out. She never did practice law. She became a monologist who specialized in Scandinavian dialect pieces. In the early 1940s Miss Larson was stranded when the Chautauqua unit she was performing with disbanded in Kennewick. She got a job in the high school teaching English and Speech and directing the school plays.

I met Miss Larson when I started high school and signed up for the debate team. She proceeded to teach me everything I would ever need to know about theater. For her I did the sets for Our Town, and later played the lead in Kind Lady. She got me into the Drama Department of the University of Washington. I was thrown out after one semester when I initiated a one-man protest against a sniper at a nearby gay cruising park. It was Miss Larson who convinced my mother that it might be best for all concerned if I moved to NYC. Not an easy decision in 1959.

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Watch out for the Snakes

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Doric Wilson.


I have reached an age when the days of my life are numbered like the grains of sand in a fairly intimate fish bowl. It tends to make one look to the past more frequently than to the future. Because I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, the landscape was very much a part of what I ultimately became. The Cascade mountains, the high desert of eastern Washington State, the Columbia River Gorge where my grandfather’s ranch was–-this was my real birthplace, however I initially and very firmly denied it. I hated the tumbleweeds and cheat grass and the forever blowing winds of home sweet home. I was determined to be someone far more elegant than the Horse Heaven Hills would permit. I refused to be a character in a Sam Shepard play. I knew in my heart and soul I belonged to Noel Coward.

No one knows where I first encountered theater. It would be years before I would move to town where I could see a movie. Our radio on the ranch was a crystal set strictly reserved for the news and crop reports. All I know is that by the mid-1940s I was putting on plays in my grandfather’s barn with my poor cousins as less than eager actors. King Arthur and his Court or ravaging, pillaging Vikings or Cowboys killing the Indigenous Peoples. All for a penny.

At the end of World War II, I moved to the nearby town of Kennewick to live with my mom and go to school. My mother was a war widow and away at work for long hours seven days a week. I was left all alone with my imagination and a more modern radio. (Most of the playwrights at the Cino in the 1960s grew up with radio, not television.) I never played games with the neighborhood kids, I organized them in huge, costumed, carefully plotted extravaganzas. Julianne Clark remembers, at age seven she was my first leading lady.

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