The River starts flowing...

Yesterday around 11a.m. I was driving to my job and listening to my Spotify playlist with "Soul Rebel" by Bob Marley & The Wailers ending and "Hurt So Good" by Susan Cadogan beginning (shameless song drop), when BAM an idea hit me. Ideas for costume designs for characters in the new play I'm working on. My ideas often happen like that, either in the shower getting ready for the day or when I'm driving somewhere listening to music. I revel in those idea moments hitting me like running into a brick wall, they put a huge smile on my face and I want to jump, but circumstances prevent me. (I can't jump in the shower or I'll hurt myself and in the car I'm strapped down by a seat belt.)

Anyway, the research and idea process are probably my favorite parts of the design process. For the past month I've read and re-read THE RIVER by Richard Montoya (several times), which is the new play I'm designing for Campo Santo with Intersection For The Arts, directed by Sean San Jose, that opens in April (78 days to be exact).

I've let the characters and their conversations speak to me and imagined this new world. I usually start to get images in my head and for this one it was a lot of color. The picture below is one of the many pictures I am using in my research and a smidgen of taste of what the show might be like. However, you will have to come see it for yourself.

I always seem to get a photo, a painting or some sort of art piece that becomes my starting point, where then I can springboard off and dive into creating the world of the play and the characters. This is when I start researching different types of clothing and people according to what I'm reading and who the characters are, what they do, how they behave, their personality. I think that's what I love best about designing costumes, figuring out a characters personality because each one is different and exciting.

So, this past Monday, we had our first production meeting and it was delightful, helpful and exciting talking about this world that Richard Montoya has made for us in his writing to put forth in real life. It's awesome hearing all the designers ideas of what they imagine for sets, lights and sound combined with my costume designs coming together in this pot to make this delicious dish of a play. This is one of the reasons I love working in theatre...

And of course, this meeting helped me to get ideas for a few characters that I had not fully fleshed out, which was my idea spark at the beginning of this post. A beautiful thing production meetings are.  

So...what next? Now comes another fun part...sketching these costumes out.