Margaret costuming, part I

The aesthetic was "vaguely World War I"-- emphasis on the vague --where most people would be in military uniforms. As I mentioned, I tend to prefer to applying a very unified design to a show's array of costumes, here I mostly shot to honor Dave's preferences and keep the characters looking distinctive from each other. To be honest, things worked out even better than I expected, hitting my main goals as well as suiting some of my personal design theory. The cast was good enough to allow me to take pictures for my portfolio, so I thought I'd show them to you and explain what I was thinking.


Here is lovely Caitlin as the main character Margaret. Dave wanted her in red to make her stand out visually and to indicate her powerful personality. Caitlin has a fabulous figure that not many people are blessed to have, which made finding red dresses to fit her a bit tough. The best I could do was a dress of mine I thrifted a while back fortunately made of a stretchy fabric, which I've always liked because of the high-low skirt and the unusual combination of one flutter sleeve and two spaghetti straps on the other side. One of these days I'd like to make a copy of it by hand. The fit isn't perfect on her, but overall I think it's all right. Over her shoulder is my red blazer-- which Caitlin once remarked upon seeing as "very sharp" --to make her seem more serious and offiical in other scenes. The shoes were costume heels I thrifted specially for the purpose, which were sexy and striking but apparently quite uncomfortable. Apologies, Caitlin, you made them work beautifully even so.


Here is Plesser as the Duke of Suffolk. This is probably my favorite costume in the show. I found the jacket and the pants at the thrift store in Waltham, separately even though they match so well. The red collared shirt is from club storage, actually quite nice, chosen because of his allegiance to the red-rose Lancaster family. It also made a nice subtle connection with Magaret The "boots" aren't actually boots, but rather a pair of brown dress shoes under the leather half-chaps I wear to horseback ride. The belt belonged to Plesser, fortunately matching the color of the boots. I like this ensemble particularly because it looks very, very much like pictures of my my great-grandfather in his WWI cavalry uniform. I made the sash myself out of synthetic red shantung, trimmed in yellow braid I had among the sewing notions my mom packed up for me. He looks very handsome, and I don't think I came up with a sharper look for this show.

Here are Charlottte and Steph as the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. It's a little hard to tell in Charlotte's picture because of the weird light, but I fashioned a uniform for her out of a blue blazer and a pair of navy tuxedo pants I found at the Garment District, which made me decide that the color of this couple with be blue. I wanted to get Charlotte a real military dress uniform, but I couldn't find one in any store I could get to in the time I had; there wasn't time to order one online. So I had to improvise. In order to make the blue wool blazer more like a dress jacket, I sewed red and gold braided trim on the cuffs, the pockets, and across the shoulders. More gold fringe like on Plesser's sash was sewn to the shoulders, and a larger version like what you'd find on the edges of a rug went across either breast. At Charlotte's suggestion, three more gold buttons were put on to make it look more like a men's jacket. A white mandarin-collared dress shirt she had completes the look. I wish I'd had time to take in the waist of the tuxedo pants, but otherwise they created the right look. Beside her is Steph in the iridescent blue dress with the cowled back that Emma so graciously lent us. I think it's very flattering on her, and the way it shimmered beneath the lights was lovely. I am very glad they ended up in the blue because it made them stand out nicely against all the olive-drab in court, and because it made for a great moment when Margaret and the duchess faced off and created a great visual of red versus blue.

To be continued in another installment!

Margaret costuming, part II

This fabulous picture is Prentice as Edward of York, eldest son of the Duke of York, besides HTP freshman newcomer Samantha LeVangie as the Duke of Warwick. I place the two of them side by side because originally I'd planned for their costumes were switched. Warwick switches sides twice in the play based on who he believes is the better claim at the moment and is recognized as a cunning military thinker, so I thought dressing the character in all black might stand well for that turncoat nature. Edward was going to have the camo jacket because the rest of his brothers all had variations on that army color scheme. But the black jacket wasn't fitting Samantha very well, and Jenna pointed out that since it didn't conceal her hips, it wasn't helping her much with making her look cross-cast. So on a whim I switched her pieces for Andrew's, and things clicked. The hat remained, concealing her hair and giving the impression of a military beret. She also seemed to move more confidently in the camo. I wish there was a better logic for Edward wearing all black, but he does become a fairly ruthless king and it does look pretty sharp on him. I found a sharp black dress shirt in club storage for him, and asked him to bring in his silver tie that would look white against the rest of it. It is a nice nod to his white-rose York allegiance.



Excusing the terrible quality of this picture, this is Alex Davis, another freshman newcomer, as the Duke of York, the leader of the white-rose party campaigning for the English throne. This was a military uniform I found complete in the Halloween section of the thrift store. Originally I considered this for Alex because he is one of the biggest men in the cast and he might have been the only person to fit it, but I ended up liking how official he looked in it, and the way it echoed the look of Suffolk's uniform. No one was like to confuse Plesser and Alex, so that similarity was safe. Also when they stood across from each other they create a cool visual motif. His dress shirt was white because of the York white rose sigil. The black tie and black belt finish the ensemble. Again I was quite pleased.



Here are the two younger York brothers, Stephen Badras as Richard, later the infamous Richard III, and Lenny as George, later Duke of Clarence. Dave requested that they look alike. When first went to the thrift store, I scoured to the place for anything vaguely military-looking, including the olive-drab jacket that you see Lenny wearing now. She told me she owned one very much like it and brought it in. Since I needed the same costume for the both of them, we put her jacket on Stephen, because he had stage combat to do and it fit him better. She also graciously took the baggier pair of camo pants for the same reason. I like how the jackets give them bulk, making them look like bigger men, and enabling Stephen to counterfeit a strange deformity to his body that is part of being Richard. Their looks are the reason I had originally planned to have Andrew in the camo jacket as their older brother Edward, so as to visually echo them, but I think it worked out.





Here is Alison Thvedt, a third freshman newcomer, as Rutland, the fourth and youngest York son. She is basically wearing what I wore when I played Fleance in that production of Macbeth I was in a few summers ago. I got Alison a black T-shirt similiar to the one I wore, and those cargo pants are mine, bought for the Fleance role. Since they are not really my style since then I've been using them as paint pants, which explains the splatters you may notice on them. I don't think they make any differnce to the look overall. :-) I bought her a hat like Samantha's, again like what I wore as Fleance, but she ended up wearing it as a background soldier rather than as Rutland.

To be continued in part three!

Margaret costuming, part III

Here is Ben as King Lewis of France and Emma as his lovely sister Lady Bona. These costumes are simple but incredibly effective. I knew that if the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester ended up in blue, which they did, I wanted the French nobility to wear green. That meant that we put Emma in this very pretty forest green stretch velour gown with elegant criss-crossing straps across the back. She looked very beautiful in it. So we found a green dress shirt at the Garment District for Ben, plus a tie of similar color to give him an edgy monochrome look. I liked the idea of a dress vest to suggest formality and power, but I had a hard time finding one I could use until Simon Cramer kindly lent us his. It came out quite sharp, and I appreciated how distinctive they looked from everyone else.


Here is Barbara Rugg as Lady Gray, the woman Edward of York takes as his wife and queen. To contrast with his black uniform I thought her queenly garb would work well if white. That gave me the idea to dress Barbara, who is a petite girl and the only person in the cast close to my size, in my lovely cream halter Cordelia gown. The gold brocade pattern shimmer quite beautifully under the lights, and I am pleased to see the dress get worn by someone, even if not by me. She holds her baby with Edward, who I insisted be wrapped in white, both for the rose of the Yorks, and to work with this beautiful gown.



Here is Julian Seltzer as King Henry VI. Originally I wanted him in a brown vest and brown slacks; he is a mild, slightly awkward, unkingly personality who I wanted to look a bit frumpy. I couldn't find anything in brown-- and apparently nobody wears vests of any kind anymore --but it turned out to be for the best. Julian came with me to the thrift store to help me find this rather nice but still somewhat unassuming gray pinstripe suit. Julian picked out this tie himself, with added the right touch of Lancaster red without being too sharp. I was incredibly pleased by how the gray looked besides the darker and richer colors around him, maintaining the effect I wanted while still being visually distinctive.



This is Abby Clarke as the witch. I wish I could take credit for her interesting costume, but all I was responsible for was the billowy black dress underneath. Abby herself brought the black cloak, while the orange cape draped over it was Charlotte's idea. It formed a large orange swath over the black and those two orange runners down each shoulder. I love the effect, giving her the typically witchy blackness while adding visual interest with the orange. Also, her orange is the only example of the color in the play, giving her a unique and slightly incongrous touch to suggest the force of chaos and doom that she is.

And that concludes the major costumes I designed! Not bad, huh? I might actually be pleased with this if I'd had a full amount of time to work on this. Came out not half bad after all.