Loving My Creative Life

Look what leaving your husband can do for you.......

Sugar, The Musical:

My return to the stage after 13 years.

Suessical:

JoJo....and yes, she was a girl in this production....

Our bird girls! Loved these outfits, and the day after this, we dyed all their shoes orange with my brand new washing machine (the other one died)

And here's the Amazing Mayzee!

From the back for privacy reasons; the same reasons that see my lovely kids with lime green squares over their faces in the other picture......

Horton! Best ever ears.....(not made by me)

Mayor and Mayoress of Whoville
We had so much fun with these costumes....

Then there was........

 Wicked!

I was just a backstage type..... but here are my charges...

The Tin Man

The winged monkeys.....

Look at these guys!!!! <3 p="">

Herself in her insignificance, posing in front of the Emerald City...............

Finally: Pirates of Penzance.
This is the first act set which I oainted from scratch. My colleague is adding a boat.

This is the second act ruined chapel, which my partner did. Except for the crappy tombstones. they were all my own work :-(

I must have painted and repainted these guys 5 times!

Here's the first incarnation, when my aging techniques rendered them utter unreadable from a distacne.

And here's a final version of one of them.

So now I am officially 'show free' until after my trip to the UK.
What, wait....I didn't tell you about my overseas trip??????
Stay tuned....

Wordless Wednesday: A Pack of Wolves

Shadows Are Harder Than They Look!

So I'd been working on the sets for a week or so when I suddenly realised I had no idea what I was doing!


We got the framework of the palace ballroom into place and then I was left with the job of creating 3D looking columns.....

I asked the art teacher at school where I was going wrong and she cautiously said, "Well, you have to decide where your light source is coming from. At the moment you have shadows on both sides of the column..."

Of course!

Back to the drawing board.

Me: They're still not right....
Her: Yes, well, you now seem to have light coming from the floor, resulting in those shadows above the middle ring...."
Me: Curses....
I tried a number of methods....

But all in all it was looking pretty rough. The next one is where I stopped even trying to do anything with the columns and the bottom one is the 'finished' palace set....

Because in the end you can go on and on and on trying to get things looking right...and the audience won't even notice.

Last weekend I had a professional join me to complete the garden scene and the interior of the inn. This guy is AWESOME!!!! I learned so much just from watching him and following his instructions Here he is fixing my sad attempt at a window seat cushion...

And LOOK at what he did to the foliage in the garden scene!!!!

He let me finish the wall and the bushes underneath........I am not worthy.

Here's where I got up to with the inn interior....

 And here it is as finished as it will ever be. I would have loved to do a bit more decoration, photos on the wall, horse brass thingies, maybe some curtains...
Also, the wooden beams on the right need to be thicker but again,  you've got to know when to stop...

On a completely different note, the school musical has been announced. We're doing 'The Jungle Book'! Happily, my director does not want to do cutsie animal onesies but wants to go with suggestions of animals, in human clothing. Here are some ideas off the web. They have built upon the Indian setting and focused on fabric to create the characters.

This is Shere Khan and Kaa, the snake.

This is Mowgli and Bagheera.

I absolutely adore the idea of 'human' animals and I'm looking forward to getting creative with fabrics and Indian traditional costume.

Meanwhile, I've been co-opted to manhandle my sets for The Student Prince (ie be a part of the backstage crew). It seems there are not enough divas in the Light Opera Society already!!

Valley Week

Yeah it's been a valley week. None of us get through these with out our 'peeps'.

Started off when I went to a Quilt Meeting to find the 'Kidzone' design I had been working on was too modern, unrepresentative of Sunday School through the ages, and would need to be re-thought. They were nice about it and it isn't the most world stopping design, but....

Then I had an email from the agent saying there'd been no enquiries so he wasn't going to do an open this weekend. And then I opened some work emails late one night to be flooded with cries of "when are you going to see me/have that meeting/take that child out of my class/ provide me with the answers to life the universe and everything...?" and suddenly I feel a little overwhelmed.

Last night I attended the 21st birthday of a young lady who has known the BA since 2003. It was a Disney party. I had to cobble together a costume.

"When did Disney do chimney sweeps?" demanded the hostess's brother.
"Mary Poppins!" said his exasperated girlfriend.
"Ohhhhh,"the light bulb flickered, "and you've made the broken umbrella and everything!"

Now given that he could not remember the chimney sweeps, I was amazed that he could remember what the bankers did to Mr Banks' umbrella! Nevertheless I informed him,"It's not an umbrella, it's a chimney sweep's broom!!!!!"
"Since when did Mary Poppins sweep chimneys?" insisted my inebriated friend....
Oh never mind, have another drink.....

Today I went into a local amateur theatre group's headquarters to start painting some sets, only to find they expected me to run the whole thing. This was fine except that I was not expecting a 20 foot by 8 foot backdrop and all my sketches were in the wrong ratio.

Cue redraw, cue OHP in a brightly lit shed at 30C+. Cue fail.
By 4.30 we had sketched up one out of three scenes and everyone had a dehydration headache.

Tomorrow I have a Kidzone (Sunday School) meeting with our new minister and the gang, during which we need to discuss the lead up to our centenary celebrations and our role in that context. Pretty sure it will be high-jacked by the new guy. Oh well! Such is life.

My Baby Angel, my work colleagues and my church friends, not to mention my Bestie and the family via Skype, have all been upholding me.

This too shall pass.

Musical: Babylonian Style

It's that time of year again!

The Musical both exhausts and invigorates me. This time around, through a series of circumstances I have found myself more firmly in the driver's seat than ever before. At my first school here in Aus, I was part of a well oiled team headed up by the Drama and Music teachers where I was but a lowly Maths type. I mean, who knew Maths teachers had a creative bone in their body!!!?? With my years of experience in theatre, but not wanting to step on anyone's toes, I put up my hand for costumes. And fell in love with the art form.

I have been happily doing costumes since 2007 but this year my narrow focus was to expand. The primary music teacher left to have a baby and our new music teacher, whilst enthusiastic, collegial and an unquestionably gifted musician, confessed to a lack of confidence in the 'acting' part of the Musical process. Somehow, in the initial meetings I got myself involved in rewriting the script and shortly afterwards they decided on a double cast, meaning I was needed to direct one set of actors.

This has proved to be a joy and a pleasure but, unfortunately, having concentrated on this direction for several weeks now, it was suddenly pointed out to me that I had three short weeks to pull the costumes together.
AUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!! (don't panic!!!!!.....)

So that is why I find myself on a Friday night, contemplating the construction of the Abyssinian king's crown.

Wish me luck with that.......

Hamburger and Fries!

 The all singing, all dancing, fast food musical opened on Wednesday night!

At the risk of getting myself into all sorts of trouble with posting pictures of students, here is a brief snapshot of the opening night of the musical.

I have since put a logo on the front of the french fries box which is a whole other story as I managed to seal up the inside of the costume by not using an ironing board and therefore melting the two lining sheets of plastic together so that the poor girl couldn't get into her costume until I cut it apart. As a result the inside of the thing is shredded but hey! It only has to last for one more performance :-)

The last photo I love because these two were so professional. The young man is one of the most lovely, solid young fellows I've ever had the pleasure to deal with, and that's not just because I know his mum! He has a girlfriend (who found this whole kissing scene very difficult) but when asked by the director to go in for the kiss, there was minimum fuss and the two of them did it in a very businesslike, though believable in the context of the story, manner! I was impressed.

The Burger costume has caused me some grief as we cannot stop it from dragging at the front and falling forwards through the song. At the end of the day I supposed it doesn't really matter but I would have liked to solve the problem. Last night we spent an hour sewing loops onto the back of the front bun, so the ties from behind could go through the front loops as well. It made absolutely zero difference. Oh well. Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated. The problem is that the front bun is so much heavier than the back one.

I have also yet to find an adhesive which works effectively on the fuzzy material, to secure the sesame seeds. I am constantly picking up a trail of them from the stage and surrounds after the show. I suppose I should have sewn them on.....

So after tonight, I can pack up the sweatshop again and say farewell to the theatre for another two years. I really should try and get involved in some amateur theatrics around town myself sometime. My own family does not count. That is more like soap opera.

Hamburger City

Yes, the burger construction has begun! Here are the constituent parts: 

I bought some stretchy, fluffy polar fleece (called Husky) for the bun, found some old red knit fabric for the tomatoes and green dance satin for the lettuce. I also bought a darker brown polar fleece with the idea of creating the hamburger patty but as I'm progressing I'm thinking the girl wearing the bun can be dressed in brown, a metaphorical patty.

Here is my first night's work. 

I covered and stuffed the top half of the bun, created some cheese slices and the tomato halves (still to be stuffed in this photo). I started to wrestle with the lettuce. How to make it leaf like and yet self supporting? The cheese slices are interfaced with  a piece of thin plastic (the type you use for wrapping delicate parcels for transit) to help them stand up on their own but that was not going to work with gathered lettuce fabric. I have ended up sewing florist's wire to the inside edges of the lettuce leaves. 

Here it is before I turned the leaf.

Here is the prototype turned, pleated and sewed in half from behind.

I'm hoping it will be enough. Whilst writing this I am wondering about some heavier duty interfacing, like buckram (used for making hats). I may try this on the pieces near the neck edge and use this one near the bottom where it can just hang.

 By the end of yesterday I had: covered the second bun, stuffed and sewn up the tomatoes, wired the lettuce and tried several protypes for attaching the shoulder straps. 

This proved to be challenging so I've gone back to attaching the fillings :-)

The show is two weeks away and I still have to start the bag of chips (french fries) costume. Fortunately we have managed to farm out a most of the shirts to other teachers and parents. There are still buttonholes to make and buttons to attach but I'm not getting too stressed yet. 

School starts again on Monday :-(

Finally!

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally bought one! And NOT off stinking ebay! >:-(

A lady from school knew someone who knew someone....anyway they were selling this for $200.00 and from my research on ebay I know they are fetching over $300.00 so, you see? Good things come to those who wait. Even if they do voice their frustration on facebook :-)

And look!!These are some of the nativity costumes I made last night with my new overlocker! I say some because I ended up making seven items!! I am loving this machine :-D

I would have had a nativity picture for you but I took my camera without its memory card in the rush this morning :-( Suffice to say it went off very well and the final tableaux was wonderful.

And now......I'm on holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because I Still Really Miss It

School is back and Lord knows I am right up to my neck in it but.....I can't help a bit of nostalgia having received a whole disk of photos from our official 'photographer'. And yes I know I shouldn't be showing faces but I am so over that anonymity thing. First off, let's start with me.
I call this one 'No Sleep'.

And this one 'Dressing Room Sweatshop'.


Here I am getting 'notes' from the Director onstage after the show.


And wrestling with that bl**** red dress...

I love the literate message left on the mirror from the make-up girls.
But now I must tell you about my inspired 'prop'.

There were a number of large props called for in the script which could have proved quite overwhelming and expensive: staircases. beds for the orphans, different rooms in the mansion; some of these were built, some summarily 'deleted' and others, as they were not 'on' for very long and arguably did not add much to the story but gave flavour to the production, teetered on the brink. Three such items included: a dog cart, a laundry hamper and a hot dog stand. One afternoon in the school basement I spied an old TV trolley which sparked a 'brilliant' idea! The trolley would become the frame for all three props.

The laundry hamper could hang inside the frame. This had to be big enough for Annie to hide inside and be wheeled offstage in. The hotdog stand would need sides which we hooked on: the dog cart could be the reverse sides of the hotdog stand. There were actually four sides to the thing but as you can see here at the dress rehearsal getting them all flipped over and reattached in time could be a problem.

Here's all our servants wearing those problematic uniforms which I seemed to be cutting out for EVER. The worst part was cutting them out at night. The black knit fabric was slippery and hard to see with my aging eyes. The blue kitchen staff dresses I borrowed from another school (yay).

Finally, here's the tech crew.

Two of the little blonde lads on the left were the ones who were 'sharing the headset' in the lighting box :-D....awwwwww....they are such babies....

And now, we return you to normal transmission.