AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - KONSTANTIN GRCIC - DECISIVE DESIGN

I've designed costumes for Collaboraction at the Art Institute of Chicago's After Dark at the Art Institute - Konstantin Grcic - Decisive Design coming up on Friday, December 11th.




The event was featured on Time Out Chicago's blog. Check out the photos.

'GIFT'

GIFT, a new devised work by Sam Porretta, opens November 16th at Collaboraction. Previews begin tonight!

Use promo code 130 to get tickets at Collaboraction.org

Photos by Saverio Truglia

AFTER DARK AT THE ART INSTITUTE - MODERN ART WING

I designed costumes for the Art Institute of Chicago's After Dark at the Art Institute with Collaboraction.

The event was on Friday, October 2 - and here's a promo video for the event, featuring the costumes that my assistants and I created.

A very special thanks to Assistants Kelly Coll and Kelsey Rhodes!

'THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO'

The Castle of Otranto, the theatrical adaptation by David Rice of the novel by the same name, is opening October 3rd at First Folio Theatre.

Here are a few costume sketches:

Matilda, Manfred's unwanted daughter, falls tragically in love with Theodore.

Manfred is ruled by a curse that was put upon his family.

Bianca, Jacques, and Diego - the bumbling, saucy servants.

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE FEATURES 'EL GRITO DEL BRONX'

Last Tuesday's New York Times included an article on Collaboraction's money-back guarantee for their latest show El Grito del Bronx.

A Chicago Production Lures the Wary with a Money-Back Guarantee by Erik Piepenburg for the New York Times, September 1, 2009

This photo, taken by Saverio Truglia, was included with the article.

PRINTERS' BALL

Columbia College Chicago's Center for Book and Paper Arts hosted this year's Printers' Ball.

Columbia's Spectacle Shop worked closely with the Center for Book and Paper Arts to create an overall look for the event that would greet attendees when they entered the building and stay with them as they roamed the multiple floors the event covered.

I designed these two Rococo style dresses and created them out of paper with the help of Columbia's Spectacle Shop and stitcher Kelsey Rhodes.

Here's a video interview from Amy Guth from ChicagoNow with the two ladies who wore the gowns for the event - Sarah-Jean Benjamin and Mari Provencher.

Paper Dresses at Printers Ball from Amy Guth on Vimeo.

Printers' Ball video featuring the paper gowns
More detail photos to come!

'EL GRITO DEL BRONX' - Jeff Recommended!!

I've designed costumes for El Grito del Bronx, opening this week at The Goodman's Owen Theatre.  El Grito del Bronx is being produced by Collaboraction and Teatro Vista, in conjunction with The Goodman Theatre.

This is the world premier of Migdalia Cruz's dramatic play. As Lulu prepares for her wedding, she reflects on her violent and abusive childhood, and the events that have drawn her and her brother, Papo, apart.

For tickets visit Collaboraction.org! The show runs July 17th through August 2nd.

View the online program.

Here are some reviews:

'El Grito del Bronx' by Hedy Weiss for The Chicago Sun-Times

'El Grito del Bronx' a Mixed Bag by Chris Jones for The Chicago Tribune

'El Grito del Bronx' by Kris Vire for TimeOut Chicago

'El Grito' Can't Quite Imbue Its Bloody Violence With Meaning, by Kerry Reid for The Chicago Reader

'El Grito del Bronx' (In English) by Randy Hardwick for ChicagoCritic.com

And, here are a few video clips from the production:

MANIFEST 2009 - RAY BRADBURY COSTUMES

As part of Columbia College Chicago's NEA Big Read grant, I designed costumes for characters from Ray Bradbury's novels, short stories, and film scripts. Below are a few publicity photos from Columbia's Manifest.

My design for Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, the Dust Witch with Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway.











The Dust Witch from Something Wicked This Way Comes.












Clarisse from Fahrenheit 451

RAY BRADBURY AND MANIFEST 2009

Ray Bradbury was Columbia College Chicago's 2009 Honorary Degree Recipient. In conjunction with Columbia College's National Endowment for the Arts Big Read grant, I designed and created 18 costumed characters from Bradbury's novels, short stories, and screen plays with Columbia's Spectacle Build Shop.

These costumed characters participated in Manifest, Columbia College Chicago's end of the year arts festival.

Here is a video interview with Ray Bradbury, featuring many of my design sketches.



Special thanks goes to:
Jennifer Friedrich, Columbia College Chicago Manifest Artistic Director
Joy Dennis, Columbia College Chicago Spectacle Build Shop Manager, Sculptor
Jesarae Richards, Manifest Painter

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS- BIG READ COSTUMES

Columbia College Chicago won one of The National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read grants this year. As part of Columbia College's program to promote reading, using Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, I designed and created 18 costumed characters from Bradbury's novels, short stories, and screenplays with Columbia College's Spectacle Build Shop. The characters participated in Columbia College's end of the year arts festival - Manifest.

Columbia College's Big Read program and the costumes that I created were featured on the NEA's blog:
'Into the Fire', The Big Read Blog, May 18, 2009

Ray Bradbury is my favorite author, and it was a dream to design and build costumes for the characters from his books!

The characters included:
The Dust Witch from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Mr. Dark from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Will Halloway from Something Wicked This Way Comes
Douglas Spaulding from Dandelion Wine
The Ice Cream Suit from the play of the same name
The Illustrated Man from the short story collection of the same name
Spaceman from a short story in The Illustrated Man
Montag from Fahrenheit 451
Clarisse from Fahrenheit 451
5 other Firemen from Fahrenheit 451
Little Nemo from Little Nemo in Slumberland
Ylla from The Martian Chronicals
2 other Aliens from The Martian Chronicals

And photos will follow shortly!

Special thanks to:
Jennifer Friedrich, Columbia College Chicago Manifest Artistic Director
Joy Dennis, Columbia College Chicago Spectacle Build Shop Manager, Sculptor
Jesarae Richards, Manifest Painter

'KATTYWAMPUS' - SKETCHBOOK 2009

Here's a video clip of Kattywampus from Collaboraction's SKETCHBOOK 2009. Kattywampus was devised by actor/choreographer Joseph Ravens. I created the spandex pouch unit that he wore for the piece.

'PARA CARMEN' VIDEO - SKETCHBOOK 2009

Para Carmen was devised by Sandra Delgado for Collaboraction's SKETCHBOOK 2009. I designed and built the period costumes.

'BEATRICE AND BEAU' - SKETCHBOOK 2009

I designed costumes for Beatrice and Beau, one of the 14 short plays in this year's SKETCHBOOK at Collaboraction. Since light plays a large part in Beatrice and Beau, I kept the pallet light for the hipster-chic couple.

MANIFEST 2009 - COMMON GROUND

Another sneak peak a few of my designs for Columbia College Chicago's annual Manifest Spectacle Fortuna parade!


I designed these costumes for Common Grounds - Columbia's LGBTA group. The women wear an exaggerated "bubble" dress with a cinched belt, and the men wear "bubble breeches" and a fitted vest with a "bubble" lapel.

Photos thanks to Alexis Ellers
Styling by Jennifer Friedrich, the Spectacle Fortuna Artistic Director
Hair and Makeup by Jennifer Friedrich and Tania Gonzalez

'CONSTRICTION' - SKETCHBOOK 2009

Constriction is one of the short plays in Collaboraction's annual short play festival SKETCHBOOK.

A gang of girls are way over their heads when they kidnap a teacher and she accidentally overdoses on laughing gas...

SKETCHBOOK 2009 - 'NEW AMERICAN FABLE'

Collaboraction's SKETCHBOOK 2009 - New American Fable opened last night to a packed house at Chicago's Building Stage! Seven new short plays and seven devised works were chosen to be part of this year's festival. There is a huge variety in the types of theatre, dance, mime, and movement pieces that make up this year's festival. I designed all sorts of costumes ranging from space suit liners and turn of the century migrant farmers to a WWI German Zeppelin pilot and a Harajuku inspired girl gang.

With over 200 artists involved in SKETCHBOOK 2009, the design process was extremely collaborative. Each of the individual pieces are all so unique, yet as a whole the festival needed a design that flowed through out - unifying the pieces into a collective work of theatre. I kept an eye of wonder in all of the costumes I designed. Something new and fresh, or slightly magical that gave a new perspective on what could be fairly ordinary. Since there is such a variety in performances I interpreted this differently for each piece.

In Para Carmen - a choreographed dance based on Lhasa de Sela's piece 'De cara a la pared' - I used a whimsical, light, and ethereal palette to create the early 20th century migrant farm worker's clothing. A light yellow bonnet shared by 3 dancers signified the passing of one woman's lifetime as it flashed before her in her death.

In What Am I Supposed To Be I created caricatured, storybook-like costumes for many characters, including a blushing bride, an experimental scientist, a convict on death row, and an American soldier. But unlike a storybook, these characters were all not what their costume suggested they were. The bride was nervous and unhappy, the scientist's experiment had gone horribly wrong, the convict was not just waiting for his death, and the soldier struggled with society's simultaneous expectations and neglect.

For Beatrice and Beau I coordinated outfits to create the picturesque cute couple. Both were completely dressed in very light colors - creating an other-worldly tableau. There was also a care-free ease to their costumes which contributed to the "roles" the characters were forced to play within the piece and highlighted their disillusionment at the end of the play.

Here's a short video from WGNTV in Chicago!

Tweets in Collaboractions' Sketchbook fun to follow'by Hedy Weiss for the Chicago Sun-Times

Theatre Review: Sketchbook Festival by Nina Metz for The Chicago Tribune

I will be posting more photos and information of my designs in the next few weeks.

Special thanks to my crew of wonderful and talented assistants:
Bethany Kelly
Kelly Coll
Kelsey Rhodes
Krystal Troutman
Stephanie McNair
Stephanie Paradiso

Don't miss SKETCHBOOK 2009 - New American Fable - there's no other theatre like it playing in Chicago. The shows run through May 10th. Use promotion code 165 for $3 off any tickets at Collaboraction.org.

'PARA CARMEN' - SKETCHBOOK 2009

Para Carmen is one of seven devised works in Collaboraction's annual SKETCHBOOK. Para Carmen is a dance piece created by Sandra Delgado, and is inspired by Lhasa de Sela's piece 'De cara a la pared'.

Michelle Nolan photographed the dancers last weekend.

Photograph courtesy of Michelle Nolan Photography.

SKETCHBOOK opens this weekend at Collaboraction, April 18th and runs through May 10th. Get your tickets now, and use promotion code 165 for discounts!

MANIFEST 2009 - MOVED DANCE GROUP

Here is a sneak peak of the costumes I've designed for MOVED - Columbia College Chicago's dance group. They will be participating in Columbia's Manifest Spectacle Fortuna Parade on Friday, May 15th.


As Spectacle Costume Shop Manager at Columbia, I lead a crew of student employees to design and build the costumes for the Manifest Spectacle Fortuna Parade, as well as many other college-wide events. For MOVED, I created a structured paper mache breastplate made out of tissue paper and paired it with a flowy chiffon A-line dress.

Photos courtesy of Alexis Ellers
Styling by Jennifer Friedrich, the Spectacle Fortuna Artistic Director
Hair and Makeup by Jennifer Friedrich and Tania Gonzalez

'A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN' - JEFF RECOMMENDED!

Josie and Phil Hogan played by Erin Noel Grennan and Larry Neumann, Jr.

A Moon For The Misbegotten opened this weekend at First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook.
 

A Moon For The Misbegotten is one of O'Neill's more heart-wrenching and also surprisingly funny plays.
Phil and Josie Hogan make quite the father-daughter pair, both are headstrong and quick witted, and few can get the best of them when they work together. T. Stedman Harder, the rich oil-man who has built up an estate adjacent to their tenant farm can barely keep his composure as Phil and Josie ridicule him for the "funny jockey's pants" he is wearing. Harder is the image of wealth and privileged in his riding outfit, and he starkly contrasts Hogan's rough appearance and soiled overalls and dingy shirt.

Phil Hogan's schemes seem only to be bested by their landlord and old friend, Jim Tyrone. Jim is an extremely likable Broadway gambler, womanizer, and alcoholic. Jim looks sharp in a summery brown three-piece suit. His dress looks as if he didn't belong on the farm, but his easy manner and familiarity with Josie and Phil mesh naturally. After having long promised to sell the farm to Phil and Josie, Jim gets the best of Phil by pretending that his promise doesn't "go north of ten thousand bucks," and that he would sell the farm to Harder without a second thought.

Always the schemer, Phil creates a web to bring Josie and Jim together- if only briefly. He used "everything [he] knew" about both Josie and Jim, as well as a few lies, to make them realize they loved each other. Each character has their own lies they tell others, and themselves. And in the end, Jim is already too far gone for Josie to save from drinking, and from himself.

I built two blue cotton calico dresses for Josie in the production. Blue is a beautiful color on actor Erin Noel Grennan, and a very fitting color for Josie - blue can be both very strong and also melancholy. I chose a subtle, light calico for the first dress we see Josie in. I liked the slight femininity that the gentle floral pattern gave her in a very utilitarian style work dress. Josie changes for a "moonlight date" with Jim, and I made this second dress out of a midnight blue calico with larger flowers in red and white scattered across it. This pattern was more boldly feminine that the dress that she was most comfortable in and highlighted her embarrassment at being so dressed up when Jim missed the date. I designed both dresses to button down the front so that Josie could show more of her "big, beautiful breasts" than may have been decent for most women of the period.

Check out this video from The Stage Channel of one of the scenes from the play.

The production is Jeff Recommended, and here are some reviews!

Theatre Review: 'A Moon for the Misbegotten' by Kerry Reid for The Chicago Tribune

O'Neill's 'A Moon for the Misbegotten' gets better with age by Barbara Vitello for the Daily Herald

'A Moon for the Misbegotten' by Tom Williams for ChicagoCritic.com

'SPACELAB 2030' - SKETCHBOOK 2009

This is the SpaceLab 2030 photo shoot with mime, actor, and devisor Dean Evans for SKETCHBOOK 2009 - New American Fable at Collaboraction. SKETCHBOOK is an annual festival of 14 short plays and devised works. It opens on April 18th - don't miss it - there will be a huge variety of theatre, dance, music, ...and costumes!

Check out this great time lapse video of the shoot from photographer Ryan Robinson.


SpaceLab 2030 from Ryan Robinson Studio on Vimeo.

SKETCHBOOK 2009 - New American Fable runs through May 10th at The Building Stage in Chicago.

Video and photo courtesy of Ryan Robinson Studio.

MANIFEST 2008 VIDEO

I am the Spectacle Costume Shop Manager at Columbia College Chicago. Along with a crew of students I design and build spectacle costumes for college events including new student Convocation, gallery openings, department events, Pride, and Manifest. Manifest is a college-wide urban arts festival that covers Chicago's south loop, celebrating senior and grad student work.

Here is the video of last year's Manifest, including the Spectacle Fortuna parade.



Don't miss Manifest this year - Friday, May 15th!

'DESIGN FOR LIVING'

Design For Living opened this weekend at First Folio Theatre.


Design For Living was written by Noel Coward in 1932. Coward wrote the play intending for Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and himself to play the leading roles of Otto, Gilda, and Leo. The comedy chronicles the complicated love triangle that entangles the three characters over the course of several years. Through the years Otto and Leo become more successful with help and encouragement from Gilda. Each act of the play takes place in a different country and at a different point in each of the characters' careers.

One of the most interesting aspects of the play is the change in status that Leo, Otto, and Gilda experience. In the first act Otto is a struggling artist living in a small Parisian apartment. I chose a dull suit that appeared to be slightly too large for him, but a suit that could pass on an artist that is trying to look good and move his way up in the world. I put him in a soft cap and worn cashmere overcoat - perhaps something that he may have bought used or been given.

Leo, by contrast, enters in the first act wearing a very fine three piece wool suit. His shoes are polished and he has obviously made his way towards being a successful playwright. Act two is set in his posh London flat. His dress is more conservative in color and cut than when we see him in act one.

Otto and Leo wearing Ernest's pajamas at the end of the play

By the second act, Otto has caught up to Leo and is now painting "popular people at popular prices." He reappears wearing a beautiful navy pinstripe suit, a new cashmere coat, and a fedora. The moment he walks in Gilda can see from his clothing that he has become a successful artist.


Gilda's clothing makes this same journey. In the first act she is wearing simple pajamas and a girlish bed jacket. As Leo and Otto become more successful her clothing becomes more fashionable. In act two I made a gold ruffled robe for her to lounge in; and later she wears a Chinese inspired embroidered pajama set.


In the end, some things will never change, no matter how much time or success has passed by.
"Reason and intelligence" prompted Gilda to wear her favorite green dress with her matching earrings on the evening that Leo came back. I also chose to have her wear that same dress the night that Leo and Otto return in act three.


Ernest is a close friend of Leo, Otto, and Gilda's, and for a short time is also Gilda's husband. He is an older art dealer, and I wanted his costume to portray his slightly conservative morals and show the age difference between him and the three others. He enters in the first scene wearing a wonderful light blue seersucker suit, red bow tie, and matching corsage.


Special thanks to my assistant Kelsey Rhodes!

The run of the show is nearly sold out already, so if you're hoping to see the show get your tickets soon! Tickets can be purchased at www.firstfolio.org

Watch a video clip here! ...and a second clip here!

Reviews:

Wit, Sex Tipled in Coward Revival by Kerry Reid for The Chicago Tribune

Subtler 'Living' Still Showcases Cowards Sharp Wit by Barbara Vitello for The Daily Herald

'Design for Living' by Joe Stead for SteadstyleChicago.com

"Coward’s three act dark comedy looks fine in the early 1930’s women’s dress and hair styles..."
from 'Design for Living' written by Tom Williams for ChicagoCritic.com

THE BEST OF 2008

Several shows that I designed for this past year made it onto 'The Best of 2008' lists!


From Newcity's Top Five of Everything 2008: Stage:

Top 5 Shows rated by Monica Westin: The Birthday Party at Signal Ensemble Theatre
Top 5 Shows rated by Nina Metz: Jon at Collaboraction
Top 5 Revivals rated by Fabrizio O. Almeida: The Birthday Party at Signal Ensemble Theatre
Top 5 Productions of Shakespeare rated by Dennis Polkow: Much Ado About Nothing at First Folio Theatre


From Fringe Theaters Are Doing It For Themselves by Kerry Reid for The Chicago Tribune:

Honorable Mention: The Birthday Party at Signal Ensemble Theatre


From 2008 Suburban Theater Highlights by Barbara Vitello for The Daily Herald:

Jeeves Intervenes at First Folio TheatreMuch Ado About Nothing at First Folio Theatre