Every year, Santa Barbara Theatre produces Leonard Bernstein’s Peter Pan.  This year, instead of renting the costume for Nana, the nursemaid dog, the company decided to have one made to keep in their stock.  They had seen the pictures from Hansel and Gretel on the Utah Opera Costume Rentals website, and found that the animals the costume shop created for that show were the same style they were looking for: cartoonish and yet believable, so they called Rose Brown, Utah Opera’s Costume Director about commissioning the dog costume.

“Nana” is described as a Newfoundland dog in the original story, but with the approval of Santa Barbara Theatre and Rose, Carmen Killam (Milliner and Crafts Supervisor) and Ken Burrell (Cutter/Draper) used a St. Bernard as their inspiration, as they felt the coloring would be better for stage purposes.  After all was decided, Carmen and Ken set to work creating a functionally artistic costume.

In order to create the head of “Nana,” Carmen first found as many pictures of St. Bernards from as many different angles and with as many expressions as she could.  Next, she drew out a profile of the dog to easier adjust it to fit a human head, and also to use as a guideline once she started carving the foam.  It ended up needing to be even bigger than she had originally drawn it, so she scanned the drawing and asked Jared Porter (Technical Director for Utah Opera) to help her scale it up in AutoCad.

To make the mold, Carmen cut slabs of foam that would be glued together to form a cube.  Once the block of foam was solid and the glue was dry, she traced the re-sized profile onto the block.  She found she would need to take a lot of foam off the block before she could get to the detailing, so she used a hot knife to slice strategic chunks of it away.  Then, using sand paper and rasps, she started the arduous process of smoothing and detailing that subtractive sculpting requires.

Carmen found it helpful to have other sets of eyes to stand back with her and look at the mold taking shape.  Other people, she explains, might see something that she missed or that needs to be altered or fixed.  Kelly Nickle (Prop Master), Lane Mortimer (Assistant Prop Master) and Jared Porter, were all extremely helpful with this step.  They were also good to share ideas with and helped with problem solving.

Once the “Nana” head was carved, it was covered with aluminum foil to protect it as she molded Veraform (a wide mesh-like thermoplastic activated by heat) over the head mold.  After taking the shaped Veraform off the mold, Carmen painted the eye and nose areas to help indicate where to leave blank, and where to put fur.

Next Carmen had to figure out where to attach a skull cap within the dog head so it would fit comfortably on the performer’s head.  Ken kindly agreed to be the model, and it was discovered that in order to keep the head level while it is worn, a foam pad needed to be added on top of the skull cap to raise the dog head up a bit.  The jowls and ears are separate pieces from the head base, which helps with the movement and believability.

Carmen used a combination of her patterning and draping skills to cover the head with fur.  It is a tedious process, making sure the fur is going in the right direction and then stitching it to the head.

Meanwhile, Ken used foam and lycra to create a base body form which would be worn by the actor to pad his or her body to help give a better illusion of having a dog body.  He then made a fur suit that is worn over the base, complete with a tail that is attached to a belt inside the fur suit around the waist of the actor.  Ken even made and covered front and hind paws, building up the front paws so that when the performer is down on all fours, both sets of “legs” are the same length.

When put together, the ensemble creates a believable and interesting costume that will doubtlessly be impressive and interesting onstage.

Today we had the photoshoot for the brochure. Mark Maziarz was the photographer, and it was a great morning with the marketing department and costume shop (along with Debbie from R&R, our ad agency) coming together with him to get some fantastic shots. I’m already excited for next year.

While it isn’t time to reveal our 09/10 season quite yet (our Subscribers are always the first to know – and they’ll find out next February), you might be able to guess what the Operas could be from some of these photos. Anyway, I won’t say anything else about them other than that’s me in the second picture.

“Governor Hunstman?  My name is Jen Jenkins.  I work for Utah Symphony and Opera…have you heard of Vivace?”

Turns out Governor Huntsman is on the board, knows our previous CEO Anne Ewers (she is in Philidelphia now, he saw her a few weeks ago), and actually opened our costume shop after it was newly remodeled a few years ago. Talk about cool! He let me ramble on for a few minutes about our group of 20s, 30s, 40s, single/married/partnered peeps who love to discuss classic music and opera events at after parties. I couldn’t help but invite him to an event, as I think Vivace is as classy as it gets.

If you are interested in participating in a group that gets their funk on to the classics, and keeps it real, come hang with us. You never know where the ride might take you. And thanks for your sponsorship, Governor. It warms the heart to know that art invested in and championed by locals is a statewide affair.

In case you haven’t been following the blog, Jen Jenkins and Melonie Mortensen (two of Utah Opera’s up-and-coming designers) put together some costumes that were shown off last Saturday night at the Madame Butterfly cast party. I was way impressed with what they were able to pull off – I can hardly match my clothes, much less design costumes for an opera.During the showcase they displayed pictures from the creative process on the wall. If you missed it then, Jen forwarded me a link to a place you can look at them online: Jen’s Pagliacci Showcase.

A one act opera, Pagliacci is a tragic story of two actors, husband and wife, who perform onstage together. Afterward, the wife is murdered by her husband.  I was intrigued by the story of the characters, but also by the fact that their performing art was Commedia del Arte.  These performers traveled presenting comic performances to wide audiences in Italy, France and Spain.  As a matter of fact opera finds it’s roots in the Commedia art form.

But back to the designs, I thought of a design concept which would illustrate both the farcical nature of the performance that the actors give, and the tragedy that closes the performance. In order to show both I chose to create vinyl outer costumes, through which undergarments could be seen which give a

view into the hearts of each character. I also love to incorporate modern sculptural elements into my designs. I feel that costumes can heighten the emotions expressed by the character and underscore their performance.

Here are my designs for the upcoming Costume Showcase. I hope you will check back with us for upcoming blogs on our process from designs to 3-D interpretation!

When I design costumes for a show, the research is thrilling.  It’s what I imagine being an archaeologist might be like: the more you look, the more pieces you find to fit the puzzle. I never feel like I’ve completed the research process, but there does come a point when there’s enough information on the page and swimming around in my brain that I have to get it onto paper. That’s when I start drawing the characters. All that information combines with ideas and concepts I’ve thought about for the show, and they become something unique and interesting to each character. Once the pencil drawing is done, I like to photocopy my designs because sometimes my ideas of what color the clothes should be changes. In other words, in case I mess up.

I’ll be honest, I enjoy painting far more than drawing as I truly love watching the colors I’ve mixed on my palette soak into the heavy paper and be manipulated to create highlights and shadows. I usually let it sit over night and look at it again the next day – probably because it’s always very late by the time I finish, and I’m not thinking clearly any more. After some tweaking, I step back and am amazed to find something that I can be truly proud of. Something that is historical and, hopefully, artistic.  Something that is a part of me.  That is what excites me the most.

In a burst of creativity the costume shop has discovered another outlet: The Purse. From a wall 11 feet high filled with small scrap rolls of leftover fabrics we look for something that strikes us. Polka dots? no too retro. Brocade? Does anyone remember what show that was from? Ahhhh! Red fabric from the original Carmen character! Once we have made a choice, maybe a few for inspiration, we start manipulating the fabric to gain an idea of what the shape wants to be. Should we use a foam base? A zipper? Maybe a magnet for a closure. What about those leftover trim and ribbon scraps? There is magic in our cupboards just waiting to spill out. What we have ended up with are expressions of the Opera characters we costume. Inside each purse we sew a tag. This tag has the Opera name the fabric was used in and the character. Each piece is original, tweaked by the costume artisan to be one of a kind. We are having such fun! Hopefully you will get to see the results of our collective creativity!

The video was written, filmed, and directed by Jimmy Martin, USUO’s Grant Writer, and was narrated by Rose Brown, our costume shop director. It was first presented to our season subscribers during the 2008-2009 Utah Opera sneak preview and was a hit with all our Opera fans. Jimmy, Rose, and the entire costume shop did a great job in putting this video together.