Pippin is still filling my world. Now that I have the vintage
circus chorus costumes finished, I’m turning my attention to costumes for the
principals. This week I created the
Baron’s outfit. I began with a black
overcoat from the Sounds of South closet and rebuilt it by lining it with the
red velour that came from a seventies lounge dress. I trimmed it with gold Christmas cord and
curtain tie-backs. The coat, now a
justacorps, worked perfectly with a quilted red and gold vest I found at the
recycle center a couple of months ago. I
had no idea what I needed it for at the time, but it became quite obvious when
I started working on the baron. It just
needed to add a few red sparkles as embellishment. The vest covers a fancy dinner shirt that
used to belong to the Beast in Beauty and the Beast last year. I removed the blue gems from the neck ruffle
and replaced them with a red and gold piece of a Christmas ornament that I got
from Becky DeLong (thanks, Becky!!)
The
buttons on the jacket cuffs are old earrings with red jewels glued in the
center and the front panels of the justacorps are held open with flattened gold
Christmas tree candle holders with a red jewel hot glued in the center. My baron will sparkle!
I also worked on Pippin’s ‘Morning Glow’ outfit. I learned I needed to create this when Chris
Miller came into the costume studio and asked me what Pippin was going to
wear. I looked a little saucer eyed at
him and asked “what do you mean?” He
explained that traditionally Pippin wears something over the top, something
surprising and eye-catching with a little ‘wow’ in it. I pulled out a black and gold collar/bib that
I had cut from a woman’s tunic top. To
that I added reclaimed gold Christmas ribbon.
I
pressed in gold studs on the embroidered lattice work and added gold trim that
I bought in Tuscon last year at SAS Fabrics and Trim Surplus Store. I added golden yellow jewels and I pinned on
a gold chain with a tassel that Nancy Riggert will hand sew onto it (thanks,
Nancy!) I counterbalanced Pippin’s heavy front of the bib with three medals
that I picked up at the Materials for the Arts - Recycle Center, taken from the Texas Senior Games. That really tickled my fancy! I put the studded bib on the chain mail-esque
shirt and hoo-doggies—it looks great!
Chris was delighted.
If that weren’t enough, I’ve been building the ‘Headless’
character. I started with a damaged
backpack from the Recycle Center and added an additional buckle across the
chest for stability. I inserted used pool
noodles and scrap Styrofoam into the backpack to give height to the tall
headless fellow who would be carrying the actor’s head. I then took an old jacket worn by Jouvert from
‘Le Mis’ (many, many years ago) and cut a head hole in the chest panel for the actor and installed
it on the backpack understructure. I repurposed two gloves from the recycle
center and put wire and stuffed fill into each of the fingers so I could position them to
look like they are holding a decapitated head.
The build isn’t quite done yet but it’s close.
The other big news form the past two weeks comes from the
Sounds of South trip to New York City.
Sixty-five students and a handful of parent chaperones took the city by
storm. The highlights include seeing the
production of Wicked at the Gershwin Theater on the night we arrived. The costumes were amazing and the singing
phenomenal. I just was completely
immersed in the production, even though I was up at 2:15 that morning to make
the trip. Friday night took me to the Franco Zepharelli's staging of La Boheme at the Metropolitan opera, which was awesome—it’s the Met, so what can I
say?
On Saturday afternoon I took in the
off Broadway production of Newsical, which was completely inappropriate for
language and content—and I loved every minute of it! It was hilarious. I stopped in at the fashion fabric mecca Mood
and was just overwhelmed with the number, range, colors, and textures of
fabrics.
It was astounding, and yes, I
met Swatch. The final evening dinner
cruise on the Hudson was gorgeous and delightful, and the perfect end for an
amazing three-day visit to New York. We
had a nice dinner when I got home, but I had to wait for the pie until this
weekend.
A blueberry pie for dessert on
a beautiful spring summer evening out on the veranda was a fine end to the week. The sad news was that I have been informed
that there are no more fruit pie fillings in the freezer from last year’s
farmer’s market. All I can add is that I
hope the rhubarb is ripe!
Until next week,
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