Write Place, Write Time: John the Mayor

Sorry for the lack of blog activity lately, but it gets very busy during production...but at least that means I have something to write a blog post about, so that's something :)

Anyway before I go on about the production I have just finished I will put up the last few posts of 'Write Place, Write Time', continuing with John the Mayor.

John the Mayor is mayor of the village (shocking), which everyone agrees should never have happened, for he is a fool, but still plays his part in the ruse of the play relatively well.

John's costumes mainly consisted of two: both of them suits.
As red was a colour used within the play to suggest the ruse that was taking place, John was asked to wear a red tie by Ruth when they were to meet for dinner later on in the play. This was paired with a white shirt,  black trousers and blazer, giving a conservative look, and of course he wore his mayoral chain just to make it really obvious when in public that he was indeed the mayor.

Design by Katie Pollitt. Performance Photo by Ashley Foster

The second suit used a darker shirt and tie to nudge at his guilty conscience for the plan that had been carried out. This suit is pictured in the image above.

The Mayoral Chain

Now it seemed a bit delusional to offer the mayor tickets to the production and then ask if we could use his chain whilst he was there, so instead I made it. Using thin gold coloured nickel chain bought off eBay at a bargain, cardboard and metallic gold paper.

To work out how much chain I needed to order, I used a ball of wool and pinned it to my mannequin over a jacket to see where it looked best to sit across the back and chest.

Once happy with the layout I marked on the wool where the chain would end and then just measured the amount of wool used. This came to around 5 metres believe it or not!

I then used pliers to pry open the chain into smaller lengths for the divisions in the chain. In the end counting individual links to make sure that the sections were symmetrical from the front and back.

When happy with the section sizes I decided on the sizes of the shields that would be attached. To make the shields I created a template shield and used this against cardboard from packaging. I then stuck metallic gold paper on either side of each shield. I then used a craft knife to etch patterns into the gold, and in other places peel off the paper to make the pattern stand out more. However on the main shield pendant I cut out the bigger intricacies around the edges, making it stand out against the darkness of the suit jacket when worn.

Below is the finished chain from the front and back on John the Mayor in his first costume. I am quite pleased with the outcome.

Photos by Ashley Foster

However just so we're clear quick changes with the chain = pain in the butt...

The above photo was taken during the rehearsals when we weren't sure about running with the chain on. Especially seeing as I had to pin the chain at the shoulders when wearing the suits, so it didn't slip forward...and obviously you can't pin it to his shoulders when he has no shirt on...So I came up with the idea of using a strip of double sided sticky tape on each shoulder to stick the chain down, as this was the main part where he would need the chain to be more secured down. Let me set the scene, or rather this stage direction from the script will:

 

Performance Photo by Ashley Foster

 "Act 2. Scene 8. Hotel Restaurant

The curtains open to show PINKERTON sat left of centre as before, reading a newspaper. JANINE is sat at the table to the right of him, deep in thought and writing notes. There follows a few moments of silence before it's suddenly broken with JOHN running in SR, dressed in only his boxer shorts. He quickly runs across the stage and disappears SL (PINKERTON watching him over the paper). RUTH and GEOFFREY (who is carrying a large blanket) run in SR and also run off SL, in pursuit of JOHN."

(Stage direction from the script of 'Write Place, Write Time' written by Oly Edwards.)

This was because he had previously been given a flask of tea as a peace offering but he didn't know that it contained hallucinogens...hence the running round in nothing but boxers...and socks...

Now because he was on the scene before completely dressed leaving SL behind someone to then enter SR in the next scene and with far less clothes on, it was a very quick costume change...20 seconds in fact. So to make this change easier, I put the double sided tape on his bare shoulders before the play had started (with the top paper strips still on so they didn't stick to his shirt, but with one corner on either shoulder slightly turned up so I didn't have to struggle to part the tape). When he came offstage I met him on SL, unpinned and removed the mayoral chain, he then undressed whilst walking across the back, whist I fixed any tangles in the chain. Then placed the chain over his head, pulled off the top paper strips from the tape and pressed down the chain to stick, whilst someone was at the back of him checking for any tangles. As soon as this was done he immediately ran across the stage.

 And after that faff, the last change of the performance was him getting dressed into his suit again, (thankfully he had plenty of time to do this) taking the chain and tape off and then pinning the chain back in place once dressed.

Original Performance Photos by Ashley Foster

Above are some more photos of John the Mayor from the rehearsal performance.

Links:

Thank you to Ashley Foster for the performance photos, if you want to have a look at his other work or more photos from the adult production please visit his website at http://ashleyfosterphotography.co.uk/  The performance photos I have used I have cropped down to focus on individuals, going to his website will allow you to see full performance shots.

If you are interested in the drama group itself that I do the costumes for please check out their website at http://www.thegrangeplayers.co.uk or their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/thegrangeplayers where there are more photos to look at and you can check out any upcoming shows.

Talk to you soon.

~K