Today brings the second half of my interview with Randy Handley, head of wardrobe for the Cirque du Soleil production Zarkana, currently running in Madrid, Spain. Zarkana travels to Moscow, Russia, in February, then returns to the US for a NY run in the summer of 2012.

Randy is a 2010 graduate of our Costume Production MFA program at UNC-Chapel ( Read more... )

Super excited to share a new installment of the interview series, this time with Randy Handley, head of wardrobe for the Cirque du Soleil production Zarkana, currently running in Madrid, Spain. Zarkana travels to Moscow, Russia, in February, then returns to the US for a NY run in the summer of 2012.

Randy is a 2010 graduate of our Costume ( Read more... )

I'm super excited to have another new interview to share, this time with Jeanette Hawley, the costume shop manager at the American Repertory Theatre, the LORT theatre in residence at Harvard University. In the interest of full disclosure, Jeanette was my manager for the four years i worked as the staff crafts artisan at the ART, and before that as ( Read more... )

I do have several excellent how-to project posts in the works, but I'll have to finish the projects themselves before i can share them, so in the interim, I'm pleased to share a new interview!

Today's participant is Eric Abele, a guy who wears (and makes!) a whole lot of hats at the Lexington Children's Theatre of Kentucky. LCT is a professional ( Read more... )

Anywhere you've got costume stock to pull from, you are pretty much guaranteed to have storage issues--how and where to store everything you own, methods for making it easily searchable, easily organized, how to fit everything into the often-limited space that you have. If you have a costume storage at your facility, like me you are probably always ( Read more... )

There's a buzz right now in the theatre blogosphere about "greening theatre," as evidenced by its gaining mention in the theatre pages of the Guardian. It's an interesting topic, vastly multifaceted, and one i often ponder myself.

Childrens Theatre of Madison's production manager Mike Lawler writes a blog dedicated to the topic called ecoTheater. ( Read more... )

One of the things i always try to impress upon those interested in a professional costume production career is the importance of management skills and an understanding of workflow. I talk to my students about this in classes, and to assistants about it in professional jobs (where appropriate, of course). I mention it whenever people ask me what ( Read more... )

This morning I did a color-match dye process for a student of mine. Our third-year graduate students do a project called Strapless Foundation, whereby they make a dress from a rendering or research image for which a bra is not an option. The dress is constructed over an interior foundation garment, kind of like a boned bustier, with supporting ( Read more... )

A recent query about MSDS records from a colleague inspired this post--i figured, perhaps i should share my response with my readership! I know these posts aren't as fun to read as parasols and masks and hats, but i feel they are just as important a part of this blog. And you never know when some bit of safety info might just save your life, or ( Read more... )

First, some new-news:

There's a great story in Sunday's News & Observer on the progress out at The Lost Colony on rebuilding their costume shop, which was lost to a tragic fire on September 11th of this year. I particularly liked reading about how folks at HBO and in the NC film industry have pitched in with donating production surplus on period ( Read more... )