Week 9
From a budgeting point of view, one of the advantages of Lady Windermere’s Fan is that there are no royalties. On the other hand, there are costumes...
But that’s no problem: royalties are invisible to the eye of everybody except an accountant, whereas the costumes give the eyes of the audience something to feast upon. From the director’s point of view, the wadrdrobe budget is money well spent.
Helen, our Wardrobe Mistress, has been sourcing the custumes to make sure they are suitably sumptuous.
“Last week Jaie (Helen’s assistant) and I took a trip to the RSC to see what the
availability of costume was for men and women. Having decided with Peter that we would set the show circa 1900, I was able to produce sufficiently period-accurate costumes for the publicity photocall by adjusting costumes from my own collection. The Oxford Drama Wardrobe have also produced some lovely outfits which, after some tender loving care, will look wonderful and considerably lessen the wardrobe bill, I hope. All I need to do now is finish measuring the cast, and it'll be full speed ahead to selection and fitting.”
On the subject of giving the audience something pleasing to look at, we’ve also this week had first sight of the set design from Peter, our designer. 1900 is right in the middle of the Art Nouveau period, and he’s based his design for chez Windermere on the clean lines of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, with a rather witty nod in the direction of a fan motif. Lord Darlington’s rooms in Act 3 will, naturally, be quite different.
Of course, this means that the job of Joanna and Kay, our Props Mistresses, becomes that little bit more exacting: the props and furniture also have to be period-specific. But they’ve already found an antique dealer who could turn out to be a ‘one-stop shop’ so, with any luck, there won’t be any last-minute scouring of junk shops to find something suitable.
From a budgeting point of view, one of the advantages of Lady Windermere’s Fan is that there are no royalties. On the other hand, there are costumes...
But that’s no problem: royalties are invisible to the eye of everybody except an accountant, whereas the costumes give the eyes of the audience something to feast upon. From the director’s point of view, the wadrdrobe budget is money well spent.
Helen, our Wardrobe Mistress, has been sourcing the custumes to make sure they are suitably sumptuous.
“Last week Jaie (Helen’s assistant) and I took a trip to the RSC to see what the
availability of costume was for men and women. Having decided with Peter that we would set the show circa 1900, I was able to produce sufficiently period-accurate costumes for the publicity photocall by adjusting costumes from my own collection. The Oxford Drama Wardrobe have also produced some lovely outfits which, after some tender loving care, will look wonderful and considerably lessen the wardrobe bill, I hope. All I need to do now is finish measuring the cast, and it'll be full speed ahead to selection and fitting.”
On the subject of giving the audience something pleasing to look at, we’ve also this week had first sight of the set design from Peter, our designer. 1900 is right in the middle of the Art Nouveau period, and he’s based his design for chez Windermere on the clean lines of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, with a rather witty nod in the direction of a fan motif. Lord Darlington’s rooms in Act 3 will, naturally, be quite different.
Of course, this means that the job of Joanna and Kay, our Props Mistresses, becomes that little bit more exacting: the props and furniture also have to be period-specific. But they’ve already found an antique dealer who could turn out to be a ‘one-stop shop’ so, with any luck, there won’t be any last-minute scouring of junk shops to find something suitable.
posted by oxford theatre guild at 11:22 AM
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