Darcy
McGrath
Creator and curator of curious artworks
Throughout the past couple of months, I have been a part of the situated creative practice unit at the Queensland University of Technology. This unit allows final year bachelor of fine art student to 'develop a professional and entrepreneurial approach to your creative practice'. I was a part of a project called Live Performance Studio. In this project, we developed two plays with the help of industry professionals. I was able to work on one of the productions called Gloria. My role in this production was associate costume designer. I lead the costuming team for this show to develop and sourcing costumes for our actors.
My process started with reading the script and searching for other productions of the play to understand the characters and to learn what directions had already been taken. I then started making a mood board on Pinterest to gather concepts and ideas. I then presented my inspiration pictures and ideas to the actors. they gave me feedback on what they think their character would or wouldn't wear. During this process, we also jotted down measurements of the actors and asked if they had anything they could source from home or friends. I then moved on to sketching the silhouette and details of each costume.
inspiration for costumes
costume drawings
Me and my assistant Maddy visited the costume storage room on the Kelvin Grove campus. We sorted through and found options that could work for the characters. We then moved on to having a costume fitting with the actors and starting to list what each character would have and what we would need to buy.
There were two separate actors playing the characters of dean and devin
Here is Reagan in scene 1 and scene 2 dean
Here is Ton in scene 2 dean and scene 3 devin
Here is Emily in scene 1 and 2 Kendra, she is also playing Jenna however during this fitting we didn't have a costume for that character.
Here is Gabby in Nan act 1 and act 3 costume on the left and act 2 costume on the right. The same come was used for two scenes since Nan isn't seen in act 1.
This is Claudia in her Gloria costume (scene 1), Sasha cosutme (scene 2), and Callie cosutme (scene 3)
This is Jack in his Lorin costume, unsure which at this would work best for.
Not shown are the two actors Josie who is playing Ani and Andrew who is playing Miles, Shawn and Rashaad. These two were absent for the costume fittings.
We then moved onto sourcing costumes that could not be found in either the costume room or from the actors. A while after I tailored some costume pieces (Ani's dress [ raising the hem, and bringing in the waist and armpit area], Jenna's blouse [shortening the straps], and Dean's blazer [ tacking down shoulder pads]). I then created Nan's pregnancy stomach. In the second scene, Nan's character is 8 months pregnant with twins so I had to recreate that size and shape. I started with making a papier-mâché bowl to create a round shape. Once dried I covered it with quilting stuffing. I made a pillow with pillow stuffing and extra fabric and glued it to the 'bowl'. I placed to shape inside a white singlet with the bottom sewn up. I then sewed the singlet to another singlet at the shoulders and waist. The second singlet used was the one that is worn.
Another task the costume team was in charge of was making sure the costumes were clean before each performance. Every night after the show Maddy, Kyle and I gathered the costumes and decided what needed to be cleaned (we cleaned all undergarments each night, all button ups each night, pants, skirts and dresses every other night, and coats would be sprayed with disinfectant). After washing we would dry the items either air drying or in the dryer, however, one night it broke so for the last couple of shows we either air-dried them, disinfected them, I dried them at where I was staying that week or in an emergency dried them with a hairdryer. Kyle would also iron everything that needed to be iron before each show.
Here are photos of the actors during the production
I was also able to work on the set a little. Maddy was tasked with creating blood and the visual effect and so I would help her set up said effect since it needed more than two hands. I started to help Sarah who was assistant stage manager with the set up of set design. I also drew up a sign on a chalkboard for inside a Starbucks. Another role I participated in was a choreographed scene change in which I and other people apart of the tech crew changed the set from a Starbucks back to an office.
Helping Maddy with the blood
Chalkboard sign I designed
Set dressing i did
