Spring Awakening
MIT Musical Theatre Guild, Spring 2015
Dir. Mark Velednitsky
I was honored to be involved in one of my favorite musicals. The director and I wanted to highlight the difference between the children's real world--confining, uncomfortable, and dreary--and their ideal fantasy world--free, bohemian, and expressive. We did this by featuring two different outfits for each child character, which were often swapped onstage as they ventured from real-world action to introspective song. Their "real world" costume was Victorian and stodgy, in a black-and-brown pallette, with heavy wool textures. Their "fantasty" costume (largely conceived from Wendla's line "It makes me feel like a little fairy princess!") were, in our minds, what the characters would choose to wear if unbound by time and social convention. The fantasy costumes had common themes of flowing fabrics, bright colors against white cotton, hand-made accents with woven tatters and tied-on lace, and an overall "timeless" feel.
The only character who escaped this rule was Ilsa, who, since running away from her confining life, wore her fantasy outfit for most of the show. During her one flashback to her miserable home life, she also wore a high-collared brown dress.
Our director had a unique take on the character Moritz: he cross-cast a woman in the role, and presented the character as transgendered, transitioning to presenting as a female in the final scene. This meant that Mortiz's base costume was similar to the boys' real-world Victorian schoolboy uniform, but their fantasy outfit was a colorful magental skirt and white blouse. (One of my best friends was playing the role. She doesn't usually like wearing skirts and dresses, so my metric for knowing if she has a good costume is when she puts it on and immediately spins around and laughs. She did for this one.)
One of the most rewarding period pieces I've ever worked on, and overall a beautiful production.
Dir. Mark Velednitsky
I was honored to be involved in one of my favorite musicals. The director and I wanted to highlight the difference between the children's real world--confining, uncomfortable, and dreary--and their ideal fantasy world--free, bohemian, and expressive. We did this by featuring two different outfits for each child character, which were often swapped onstage as they ventured from real-world action to introspective song. Their "real world" costume was Victorian and stodgy, in a black-and-brown pallette, with heavy wool textures. Their "fantasty" costume (largely conceived from Wendla's line "It makes me feel like a little fairy princess!") were, in our minds, what the characters would choose to wear if unbound by time and social convention. The fantasy costumes had common themes of flowing fabrics, bright colors against white cotton, hand-made accents with woven tatters and tied-on lace, and an overall "timeless" feel.
The only character who escaped this rule was Ilsa, who, since running away from her confining life, wore her fantasy outfit for most of the show. During her one flashback to her miserable home life, she also wore a high-collared brown dress.
Our director had a unique take on the character Moritz: he cross-cast a woman in the role, and presented the character as transgendered, transitioning to presenting as a female in the final scene. This meant that Mortiz's base costume was similar to the boys' real-world Victorian schoolboy uniform, but their fantasy outfit was a colorful magental skirt and white blouse. (One of my best friends was playing the role. She doesn't usually like wearing skirts and dresses, so my metric for knowing if she has a good costume is when she puts it on and immediately spins around and laughs. She did for this one.)
One of the most rewarding period pieces I've ever worked on, and overall a beautiful production.
My sketches:
Production stills, courtesy of Alexander C. Bost: