Librarians think a lot about the “appeal factors” of books and authors. If you’ve ever asked a librarian, “so . . . what should I read next?”, we’re trained to ask exploratory questions to get you to identify what appeals to you about the books you enjoy. Then, we can lead you towards books with… Read more »
While we will return to costumes in very short order, I thought it might be time to ask “who this Nicholas Nickleby is anyway?” Dramaturg Anthony Fichera has been gracious enough to provide a brief character analysis of not only Nicholas, but his sister Kate as well. In the coming weeks, Anthony will help us… Read more »
A couple of weeks ago, we took a look at costumer designer Jan Chambers’ most amazing first-round sketches. This week, we move into the finalized sketches. These are still black and white because many (certainly not all) of the costume pieces for this show are going to either be pulled from our enormous costume storage or rented,… Read more »
How does a hat go from page to stage? Let’s follow the progress of Miss LaCreevey’s hat from design to reality! First, as a milliner, i receive a costume design and some research from the costume designer. I also get a sheet with head measurements for the actors (or, i take them myself) so… Read more »
So you’ve seen the CHART (if not, see video Casting Process with Joe & Tom -June). Costume pieces for a show the size of Nicholas Nickleby number in the hundreds! Costume designer Jan Chambers started with the color palette below and began sketching only to end up with hundreds of sketches. I’ve worked in this building… Read more »
The poster art process for Nickleby started by meeting with the directors, Joe and Tom back in July. This is much earlier than we typically discuss artwork – but of course Nickleby isn’t a typical show. In our initial meeting many themes were discussed including the people of Nicholas Nickleby, the locations, hope, loss, family,… Read more »
McKay Coble’s set model is now complete. She’s painted it and even included figures just for fun (or for scale). Either way, her attention to detail in this model is staggering to me, a lowly graphic designer. On the day I went in to shoot these photos, it took much longer than planned because I… Read more »
When working in a specific period, I often do method research into millinery techniques of the time in question. In our costume library, we have texts from throughout history on how various articles of clothing were made in earlier eras. Granted, we don’t follow those to the letter, rather we use them as guides for… Read more »
We had to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog this week for an exciting announcement. The role of Nicholas Nickleby has been cast! We are thrilled to announce that JUSTIN ADAMS, last seen at PRC as Mercutio, will return to perform in the title role. Of his performance in PRC’s Romeo and Juliet, The Independent Weekly’s… Read more »
Just after “Pride and Prejudice” closed but before the end of the spring semester, PlayMakers’ costume department met with designers Jan Chambers and Jade Bettin to strategize costume production on “Nicholas Nickleby.” Jan had some initial costume renderings to share with us, and Jade presented an impressive (large, daunting) costume plot?basically a huge spreadsheet listing… Read more »