I had a difficult situation with a play I designed last summer.? The director didn't have much of a clue what he wanted before the rehearsal process started but he did have one conceptual concept he wanted visualized by the costumes and I agreed it would be a good one, so I designed the show around that.? The play only had 2 actors, one male, one female (The Last Five Years) and when rehearsals started, they, especially the woman, started suggesting costume ideas.? At that point, the director more or less submitted to their-mainly her--ideas and my ideas kind of flew out the window.? It was a shopped show and one weekend the woman even went to a store and bought some things she liked, to bring back and show me.? I was getting rather frustrated and disappointed by then but tried to go with the flow and I actually did appreciate their input, since they knew more about their characters than I did through rehearsing their parts.??? I guess I've been in the business enough by now to know do this, although it would have been impossible if the costumes had been built.
This is why I continue to maintain that contemporary show are the most difficult to design.? Many cast members think they have a better idea than the designer.? And?many directors, wanting to please the actors in order to get the best possible performance out of them, will let the actors dictate to the designer what they want.? Which is why research and renderings are extremely valuable from the beginning of the process.? So it doesn't turn into "He said, she said" and one can produce the original ideas which were agreed on.? I hope we're not boring the non-costume designers on this list. Cheryl Odom College of Santa Fe _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
