Write Place, Write Time: The Hag

There is a mystery within Write Place, Write Time which involves the character of the Hag playing the part of a ghost of a murdered woman, or so it would seem... 

Design by Katie Pollitt

The director  wanted the hag to be overly ragged, so I went a bit mad with the ragging of the skirt, but to keep the actress' modesty she wore a long night shirt underneath. However because the group only had two of these, they didn't particularly want it all shredded up, unable to use again without rags. So 

I unpicked the sleeves from the shirt, and used them as a template to cut two new sleeves, which I then sewed into the sleeve hole and shredded to pieces.

In order to make the ragging of the night shirt simple to do, I pegged it to the washing line...with perhaps more pegs than needed... and so not dragging the Stanley knife through anything else beneath it.

By the way guys, great way to relieve stress/anger...as long as you're careful...I mean look at the wound I made when making this costume....

Obviously only joking, above is a photo of the stab wound I painted onto a scrap piece of fabric, to later attach to the back of the Hag's ragged and dirtied costume.

Again because I couldn't rag the actual night shirt, for the used bottom section you would see underneath the green skirt I used scraps of white fabric, ragged them and then hand sewed these into place.

To emphasise the rags on the night shirt and the skirt I went over the edges with a graphite stick and then charcoal, as the graphite didn't seem to do quite a good a job as I was hoping. The purpose of this was to make the rags look dirty but when I first did it, up close it looked more like she'd been in a fire...but after rubbing the excess off from a distance it just dulls the white a bit which is good.

The Wound:

The Hag played the part of the ghost of the woman who was stabbed in the back...which therefore meant she needed  a stab wound on her back.

Again because the night shirt was to be able to be worn again, I had to come up with a way that wouldn't damage the original garment, so I decided to make it separately and then stick it to the night shirt once done.

To do this I got two layers of white cotton fabric to match the night shirt, and ripped one layer with the edge of scissors, marking where the top and bottom of the rip would be onto the other layer of fabric, showing me where the wound should be.

I then used matt Impasto Gel to get the raised look of the skin peeling back from the wound (impasto gel is something you can mix into acrylic paint to thicken it).I then brushed the surface of the raised skin with different shades of red, acting like dried scabs/clots at the edge of the wound, with darker reds.

I know things like this can't really be seen from the audience but doing these little details mean that if you can see up close, it looks just as effective as in the audience.

To create the effect of the blood seeping into the shirt around the wound, I watered down the paint quite a bit, running the brush against the edge of the rip, and then dabbed more of the watered down paint slightly further out from the wound.

I then cut out the shape of the blood stain, where the white of the fabric had just started to appear at the edges, hopefully making it look a bit more realistic. I then applied double sided tape to the back of the wound and stuck to the night shirt she would be wearing.

The double sided tape worked well because it acted as if the blood had dried to the fabric and stuck to the wound. I also had some threads frayed from the rip sticking into the wound.

The above image shows photos throughout the process of making the wound.

Below is the front and back of the finished costume and the Hag during rehearsal performances.

Original Performance Photos by Ashley Foster

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

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