Last June, I had the opportunity to participate in an experience design Master Class with Odyssey Works in Portugal. It was a delightful mix of participants from multi-disciplinary backgrounds in a beautiful location with an even more beautiful purpose. 

Check out the description of the process and collaborators here: http://www.odysseyworks.org/taz

See the contributor credits for a hint as to why I have a picture of a bowl of dry rub as the banner for this post! ;) 

​Stay tuned for the iconoclastic documentary of the process by Ayushman Pandey, coming soon!

Long time with no posting, but I have been nominated for two Broadway World Birmingham Regional awards: Best Costume Design for HAIR and also for my poster design for our production of THE WOLVES. 

You can see HAIR here and vote here. 

​Here is my poster design that has been nominated. The production was in Fall of 2017!
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Welcome! Chances are if you are here, you have been referred from my session at the 2016 USITT Southeast Regional Section Master Classes at Auburn University, UM's neighbors to the south. 

Below find links to the handout and a link pile Google Slides document- I will try to keep those up to date as shops open and close.

Google Slides

Handout

Here is a slideshow of SPRING AWAKENING a studio-style musical we did Spring of 2016 and we used Life's Entropy highlighter creams with All Natural Face liquid foundation in matched shades to actors' skin tones. The idea was to make them look like they had a hormonal teenage sheen combined with sweat from frolic in the springtime, but also to bring out faces from hard overhead lighting angles because of the unique adapted space and mixed media of lighting instruments.

 
The students you see in the video above are in various levels of Costume and Makeup Applied. In addition to listed 3 credit hour courses in design, technology and application of skills in the Theatre catalog, there are options for expanded study in topics and techniques of your choosing, like Jae talks about Undergraduate Research in the video above.

Previous and current topics include: Advanced Makeup techniques (prosthetics, expanded glamour design, wig styling and construction), Historical tailoring techniques, advanced pattern making, as well as special courses intended as senior capstone experiences in portfolio development and pre-professional career planning. Directed Studies are housed in the Theatre department and proposals can be made at any time. Undergraduate Research is a campus-wide initiative that is also available for proposals each semester; they LOOOOOOOVE Theatre majors! We do cool stuff...

For students with varied interests and career goals not completely addressed by any single major, there is a selective process for designing and completing an Interdisciplinary Studies major. Costume and Makeup topics to date in this area include: Conceptual Fashion Design (Costume Design, Retail Merchandising, Art and Business) and Theatre as Anthropology (Costume/Dramaturgy, Behavioral and Social Sciences and Photography). This option is available after the sophomore year and results from a careful mentorship with a Faculty Advisor and approval by the IDS Faculty Committee. It is a lot of work, but for the committed true "liberal arts" student, an exceptional opportunity.

Students have opportunities for design assistant/assistant designer and solo design assignments based on an application and qualifying process. Student designs you can see on my website here include:

SCAPIN Makeup by Stephanie (Farris) Welch '10

​THE BACCHAE Makeup by Sara Larson '12

​CABARET Kit Kat Girl Makeup by Katy Beddingfield '16

Plus many more crew chief (SPRING AWAKENING), assistant roles with significant creative responsibility, student produced designs, and recent productions for which photos aren't in yet!

​Feel free to browse my site as well as the University Page for more photos and information! I hope to see you soon in the shop!

"EmG"

Here is a great video of first dress rehearsal for HIGH FIDELITY at University of Montevallo! This is such a fun, nostalgic design for me- being a former citizen of both Athens and Seattle... the ghosts of all my friends and acquaintances make their way into this one... 

Ugh, you guys. I should have gotten a flu shot!

Huh to the what-now? In my travels, I have found this wonderful, stimulating world of performed design free from the script- sort of... I guess it is performance art, but it seems more rooted in theatre and our style than the performance art world...

Anyway, I spent a great evening talking to Montevallians about my next project that I am working on for performance in 2014 sometime at the Art Sqwalk Art Walk last Saturday. 

Check out the website for my project group: PillowFort Performance Group

This summer, UM offered the Online Stage Makeup class again THIS TIME! with new and improved online teaching software. (Bye-bye Blackboard...)

While I waited for new videos to render and upload, I binge watched Mad Men and The Walking Dead which may have had some adverse effects on my mood...

What struck me, as I watched these shows in the all one sitting fashion, is the really excellent continuity and progression of makeup work- as well as clearly defined style and signature character looks.

SO! As a special extra lesson (and example for the midterm assignment which was to put a character through a disaster) I developed what I hope will catch on soon: The Middle Aged Woman's AMC Channel Fan Universe! (I plonked poor Joan Harris into the prison community outside Atlanta). 

Tutorial videos below show the technique with Ben Nye Student Kit and some other easy to find items, however resolution and file size limits are disappointing (they get better each year though) and you can't see the texture as well as in my selfie above. I don't have freckles...

THE WALKING JOAN Part 1
THE WALKING JOAN Part 2

Some more photos- the last two are messing with basic iPhoto levels to get an idea of digital filtering or editing. The first few are overcast afternoon daylight in my creepy creepy studio area. (Note: for some reason Weebly is doubling these... and I can't figure out why... sorry.)

Over the years, many kind people have donated items to the UM costume stock, and after several seasons of large, modern musicals- we are BUSTIN' OUT!!! So, in a fit of energy and graced with a low production, mostly pulling and styling costuming Spring semester, I decided NOW IS THE TIME to clean that room out and make room... and pull for shows at the same time.

I have been assisted by some really tireless students in Applied Theatre costumes in sorting, hauling and pricing, and today we are going to sell sell sell I hope hope hope...

Some of you may be reaching this page because I gave you a link to see some videos on what to do with your purchases, well here they are! 

For our production of THE BACCHAE at UM in 2011, like a crazy lady with nothing else important to do, like teach a 90-strong section of Introduction to Theatre, and whipped into a creative frenzy by the director's (ever-awesome Tammy Killian) sick and twisted production concept of cyber-goth- I decided to outfit all the maenads with home-made felted wool locks. In technicolor. 

You may be asking- why make them? Can't you buy those or aren't there easier ways to do this?

Yes, but in addition to the 90 Intro students, I had about 20 Applied Theatre students I needed to keep busy. They were willing but beginners, and to harness their amazing work ethic and maximize my teaching time- I decided to create a wool lock sweat shop (actually it was kind of steamy once I started dyeing).

This is how we made them:

The next step is to start putting these into easy to use horsehair pieces so they could be styled into the actor's own hair easily by a student hair stylist. See an example below:

Now the fun part: STYLING! A test on me with the heavy stock piece and a very good sport actor, the ever awesome Mia Shirley, with a much lighter piece, as well as also ever fantastic hair and make-up crew member Alix Black in a trial for a particularly active character.