Design Idea: All Natural Sequins

Many costumes are spangled with sequins to give performers an extra oomph on stage!  A memorable recent example would be the costumes from Taylor Mac's The Walk Across America To Save Mother Earth, gloriously crafted by Machine Dazzle. (Witness the Dazzle - warning, NSFW!) 

A new costume restoration at Smallhythe Place in Kent, England, used a much different kind of sparkle:

beetle wings

The dress dates to 1888 and was worn by Ellen Terry when she played Lady Macbeth.  Described as "emerald and sea green," the dress was made with 1,000 beetle wings and was restored at a cost of £50,000.  Where did they get all these wings?  The house manager, Paul Meredith, notes: "We had collected the beetle wings that had fallen off the dress over the years so that the conservator was able to re-attach many of the originals, plus others that had been donated to us - 1,000 in total."

Apparently, no beetles were harmed in the making.  The iridescent wings are naturally shed throughout the beetle's life cycle.

Too "bugged out" by the real thing? Try these!

Have you ever used an insect or animal by-product in your costume design? Tell us in the comments section.

Nicole Smith: Master Scheduler!

As a director and producer, I've long thought that the art of scheduling deserves its own Masters Program.  And if you think scheduling actors and a production team for one show is a challenge, it takes a special mind to schedule a Festivity with 50+ productions!  Managing Director Nicole Smith came up with an ingenious way to schedule the shows AND do it GREEN!  Read about Nicole's process...maybe you'll get some ideas!

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Scheduling a festivity is always going to be a large task especially one with multiple performance venues and a lounge. As I started thinking about the schedule a few months back I wanted to find the best way to see the entire picture of each venue in one glance as well as an easy way to compare the venues on a daily and hourly basis.  Now this being a green festivity, I knew that I had to find a way to do this without purchasing new materials.  This past February, while working at The Juilliard School, I came up with my solution. 

I was working on Henry V and one of the props was a large gold framed white board that the actors used to write on each performance and then be wiped clean for the next one. Well, we soon discovered that the materials was not as dry erase or even washable as it advertised.  

The solution? 

One-time use large pieces of white poster board
which were taped on to the already existing props. 

The challenge: this solution was not so eco-conscious.  BUT! I had other plans....

GREEN SOLUTION #1: re-use the boards to plan out the Festivity schedule!  Since this was a prop that I was in charge of I made sure to stash all those single side use poster boards for a subway ride to my apartment! In the end, I had a total of 4 boards; each Festivity venue was split into two weeks per board. Once I sharpied out all the lines to create a calendar running daily from 9am to midnight, I began to work on a way for each performance and each tech to be easily removable as well as representing the physical time they would be in the space. GREEN SOLUTION #2: Put to use all those single day calendar pieces from my cute-overload calendar my family gave me for Valentines Day!  Each show got it's own "card" representing the show title, running time and # of performances, plus any requests from the artist.

Creating the boards

Once all this prep work was complete I began to plug in all the shows and tech rehearsals by venue!  Et voila!  Because I thought through my needs ahead of time, this board allows me to easily move the shows around on the schedule when new changes and requests come in.  And all the while, I can rest easy, knowing that I'm doin' it all GREEN!

Have you been saving materials from one project to re-use for another?  Tell us about it in the comments section!