Kathleen Laundy     Costume Designer
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  • Home
  • About Me
  • Aggie Players Archive
  • Alumni Wall of Fame
  • Artists Memorials
  • Awesome Costumes
  • Blog
  • Cosplay
  • Costume Links
    • Education
    • Resources/Organizations
    • Ren Faires
    • Comic Cons
    • Designers
  • Courses Taught
    • DRAM 1342 Costuming
    • DRAM 1341 Makeup
    • DRAM 2331 Intro to Design
    • DRAM 1310 Theatre Appreciation (Online)
  • Current Season
    • Steel Magnolias
    • The Gods of Comedy
    • The Addams Family Musical
    • Die Fledermause
    • Love/Sick
  • Everything Else Links
    • Dramaturgy
    • Texas Theatres
    • Scenery/Lighting
    • Performance
    • Artists
    • Etsy Shops
    • Music
    • Life Hacks
    • Businesses
  • Makeup Links
  • Other Artistic Outlets
  • Presentations
  • Press
  • Production Archive
  • Professional Development
  • Reading List
  • Write to Me
  Kathleen Laundy     Costume Designer

Blog

Just me talking about costume-y kind of stuff

San Antonio for Kelly's Wedding

12/10/2022

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Made plans to meet Casey Bellows at Gil's Broiler in San Marcos for lunch.  It happened to be graduation for Texas State, Farmer's Market, Christmas Festival, and an Art Show all happening at the same time downtown.  Parking was a nightmare.  But Gil's was worth it.
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Holiday Inn Express

 We checked in at 3 after going to the wrong one on Cameron a few blocks away.  The correct Holiday Inn was on Commerce.  Further from the River Walk, but free parking, two pools, and the elevator wasn't broken like the one on Cameron. Also, no front steps so way more accessible.
​Had some tea and took a nap.  Walked down to the river and ate Mexican food and had a margarita. Found an awesome little spice and tea shop and bought 3 spice packs and 3 teas. The weather was beautiful but the River Walk was entirely too noisy and crowded.
​Free breakfast the next morning which ended at 9 so we got to sleep in and still had plenty of time to get packed up and checked out by 10 which was when SAMA opened.
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The view from our hotel window.
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This awesome thing was just down the block. It was way cooler at night because it was a all lit up.

San Antonio Museum of art (SAMA)

Got in for $3 with our SNAP card. Musuem opened at 10.
SAMA
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Lunch at El Milagrito

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My lunch: tiny barbacoa tacos.
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Rob's lunch: carne guisada
It was on the way to the McNay and by the time we got there, there were only a few people there.  Our food was most delicious and came out really fast.

McNay Museum

It was free with our SNAP card.  Opened at noon. This was the big attraction for me because Susan HIlferty, the costume designer from Wicked, had an exhibition going on. Museum closed at 5 so we had two hours to kill before the wedding.  
McNay Museum
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Susan HIlferty's website
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World-renowned costume and set designer Susan Hilferty has designed more than 300 productions across the globe. Hilferty’s designs include Broadway (Wicked, Funny Girl, Present Laughter, Spring Awakening, Lestat, Into the Woods, and August Wilson’s Radio Golf), over 100 off-Broadway shows, innumerable regional-theatre productions, opera, circus, live-music events and dance. Something Wicked: Susan Hilferty Costumes pays tribute to Hilferty’s process, and gives an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at everything it takes to bring designs from page to stage, across this broad diversity of forms.

Hilferty’s many honors include the US Institute for Theatre Technology’s (USITT) Lifetime Achievement Award, the Irene Sharaff Award for Lifetime Achievement, an OBIE for Sustained Excellence in Design, the Lilly Award, the Ruth Morley Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women, and Tony, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk awards for the Broadway Musical Wicked. Hilferty is on faculty in the Department of Design for Stage and Film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, having served as chair for 25 years, and continues to design prolifically from her studio based in New York City.  

Something Wicked: Susan Hilferty Costumes is a celebration of Hilferty’s collaborations with the makers and artisans who bring her designs to life, including dress makers, drapers, tailors, shoe makers, milliners, wig makers, embroiderers, painters, and mask makers. When Hilferty received the Tony Award for Best Costume Design for Wicked, she wore an evening coat embroidered with the names of all her creative collaborators to honor them.  ​

Wicked Costume Exhibit

Other Productions

Habibi Cafe

Mediteranean food like shwarma and gyros. We were planning on having supper there before the wedding, but we ended up being there at tea time instead. So I got chai and baklava, and my husband got mint lemonade and kunafe.  We were the only ones in there because it had just opened at 4,  which was nice.  The food was great. 
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Afterwards we went to a rare and used book store Cheever's.  We both sneakily bought each other Christmas presents while we were there.  I Then ate an early supper of breakfast at IHOP which was right across the street from The Witte.
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Review of Cheever Books by an author
Cheever Books website

Witte Museum

Wedding started at 7.  Tapas for the reception among the dinosaurs.
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Ellen Terry's Lady Macbeth Gown

4/2/2022

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John Singer Sargent painted Ellen Terry wearing this costume after he's seen her perform in it in 1888.  Until just recently, this is the only source available for what it looked like.  However, due to years of being worn and taken on tours, the dress was in desperate need of restoration.  In 2011, the National Trust spent 110,000 pounds doing just that. Textile conservator Zensie Tinker spent 5 years on the iconic dress and the results are amazing.​
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https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/smallhythe-place/features/the-beetle-wing-dress-at-smallhythe-place
The 'Beetle Wing Dress' worn by actress Ellen Terry (1847–1928) for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Henry Irving's production of Macbeth at the Lyceum Theatre, London in 1888 – 1889. The gown was designed by  Alice Laura Comyns-Carr and built by Ada Cort Nettleship. The dress consists of a knitted bodice, crochet sleeves and skirt lined with a plain-weave silk. The dress is embellished with green iridescent beetle-wing cases designed to shimmer under stage lighting. The costume is accessorised with a bejewelled heather coloured cloak, costume jewellery, a belt and a hanging scabbard and knife.
My version of this dress
When our family needed new costumes to wear to Sherwood Forest Faire, this dress was my inspiration for my costume, which you can read all about in the link to my blog.

Today I found another costume maker's blog It's all Frosting, where she recreated this gown to wear to Costume College in 2019 and I'd like to share her journey with you. I'm mostly doing this so I can find it later.

Part 1: Inspiration
Part 2: Supplies
Part 3: Patterning and Mockup
Part 4: Cutting
Part 5: Bodice and Construction
Part 6: Beetlewings
Part 7: More Beetlewings
Part 8: Skirt
Part 9: Sleeves
Part 10: Collar and Brooch
Part 11: Belt
Part 12: Wig Styling
Part 13: Crown
Part 14: Final Photos
Part 15: Final Thoughts
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Do No Harm, Wyly Theatre Dallas

3/12/2022

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From left to right: Claire Carson as Tabitha, Whitney Coulter as Lucy, Johanna Nchekwube as Betsy, and Brittney Bluitt as Anarcha.
Broadway World Review of Do No Harm written by Zac Thriffiley.  IMO this review is very thorough and Thriffiley perfectly captures how I felt when I saw the play. I didn't see it on opening night like he did, but the technical problems he mentioned were fixed by the time I saw it two days later. Luckily, after the show they held a talk back to give the audience a chance to hear from the creative team and ask the questions. Listening to them talk was even more enlightening and watching the rapport they all had with one another.
Do No Harm
DO NO HARM
Streaming Tix Purchases Available APRIL 1, 2022
Dallas Art Beat review of the film version.

Soul Rep Theatre

Soul Rep Theatre
on Soul Rep Theatre Company’s stage - BLACK art, BLACK narratives, BLACK joy, BLACK families, BLACK history, BLACK love, BLACK struggle, BLACK brilliance, and BLACK LIVES have ALWAYS MATTERED. 

Elevator Project

Elevator Project
In 2014, the AT&T Performing Arts Center created the Elevator Project to provide small, emerging and historically marginalized arts organizations and artists with a performance platform in the Dallas Arts District. It has evolved into an exciting, curated season of work stretching across genres, with the projects chosen through a competitive process by a panel of arts professionals and advocates.

Presentations may range from single-night performances to a two-week run for a play. They may include music, theatre, dance, spoken word, cabaret, comedy, opera, and more. Most shows are performed in Hamon Hall in the Winspear Opera House or in the 6th Floor Studio Theatre in the Wyly Theatre.

Applicants must be Dallas-based and special consideration is given to groups or artists that do not have a performance space they call home. Successful projects may include new and experimental works, ethnically and/or culturally specific projects, and performances designed for unique spaces on the Center’s campus.

​2021/2022 Season
  • Sangeet Millenium / Arts Nomadic
  • Soul Rep Theatre Company
  • Janelle Gray (Theatre)
  • Indique Dance Company
  • Urban Arts Collective (Music)
  • Bandan Koro African Drum and Dance Ensemble
  • Justin Locklear (Theatre)
  • Bombshell Dance Project

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March 07th, 2022

3/7/2022

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Dallas Museum of Art

Naudline's website
Naudline Pierre (b. 1989, Leominster, MA), lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She creates works that explore a mysterious alternate universe full of characters that often interact with each other in tender ways. Pierre holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and a BFA from Andrews University.
Pierre’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Armory Show, New York; Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; Perrotin, Seoul; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest among others. Pierre’s works are in the permanent collection of the Pérez Art Museum Miami; CC Foundation in Shanghai; Dallas Museum of Art; The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University; and The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City. Pierre was a 2019–2020 artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. The works produced at the residency were on view at MoMA PS1 as part of the exhibition This Longing Vessel: Studio Museum Artist in Residence 2019–20 from December 10, 2020 through March 14, 2021. In 2021, her work will be featured in Prospect.5 New Orleans, and is the subject of a forthcoming solo exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art.
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MUDcloth

Soundcloud interview with Dr. Roslyn Walker on Mudcloth
DMA Mudcloth
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Octavio medellin, sculptor

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By Jay Simmons - Bywaters Special Collections, Southern Methodist University, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78734282
Octavio Medellín (1907-1999) was an influential Mexican American artist and teacher whose work helped shape the Texas art scene for six decades. The DMA is proud to present Octavio Medellín: Spirit and Form, the first-ever museum retrospective for the noted sculptor. The exhibition will include approximately 80 works, exploring the evolution of Medellín’s sculptural practice, his public art commissions, and his legacy as a beloved and respected teacher. During the more than 40 years he lived and worked in the Dallas area, Medellín influenced generations of students as an instructor at the school of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and as founder of the Creative Arts Center.
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DMA Octavio Medellin

Gaudalupe Rosales

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DMA Soundcloud interview
Los Angeles-based artist Guadalupe Rosales is creating an immersive mural in the DMA’s Concourse that pays homage to lowrider culture and the community it fosters. Hear directly from the artist about her work, and see "Guadalupe Rosales: Drifting on a Memory" when it opens for free at the DMA on December 10.
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Slip Zone: A new look at postwar abstraction in the americas and east asia

Judy Chicago

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Judy Chicago's website
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Gigaku Masks

Gigaku Mask at The Kimball Museum

TAntric Buddhist Initiation Crowns

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Fiddler on the Roof, Ursaline Academy

We went to see Fiddler on the Roof at Ursaline Academy, where MCC alum Whitney Coulter teaches costume and makeup classes.  Whitney designed the costumes for the show.  I got to meet her colleagues and her students.  The talent there is amazing, such good singers and dancers.
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Squirrel Girl and Doctor doom take 3

1/26/2022

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Squirrel Girl Blog
I wasn't happy with my first tail that I made for The Wind in the Willows or the wig that I used.  And I screwed up Doom's armor the first time I tried to do it because the weather was both too hot and humid for painting outside.  So I threw it aside in frustration and just finished my costume to wear to Geekfest.  You can check out all of that backstory at the link above.
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Squirrel Girl and Doctor Doom reboot
Reboot: Still not happy with the tail, but not having time to start a new idea,  I replaced it with an inflatable one I bought online that popped after I wore it to the Skellington Halloween Costume Contest. I gained 40 pounds during the pandemic so I came up with a different bodysuit, I cut my brown leo in half so I could still wear the top half and bought a coppery corset to suck in my gut and then bought brown shorts to wear on my bottom half that I trimmed with fur. I found better looking boots as well and I bought a much better wig. Again, last minute I was only able to get some of Doom's armor together (the upper body pieces) but I did manage to make a helmet that was also crap and didn't sit right on his head.  You can read all about that at the above link.

squirrel girl

 So here I am making yet another version of my tail.  After all the work on She Kills Monsters making things out of coat hangers and pool noodles, I came up with a new plan for my squirrel tail.  I've been saving bubble wrap and the larger pillow packs to use for lightweight padding to bulk up the tail. The pillow packs were the first layer, then I wrapped all that completely in bubble wrap. I used packing tape to tape it all onto the pool noodle and to itself.  I left a hole to wrap some wide flesh colored elastic around the top of the pool noodle, even with my bra straps. Once I cut the fun fur out and sew it up, I'll have to leave a slit open in the front to put the elastic through.  I'll also have to cut two slits in my leather jacket to attach the elastic to my bra straps.  Once that's done the tail should stay upright and be very secure on me without putting too much strain on my back or waist and I should still be able to sit down comfortably. Update: I can sit down comfortably as long as the chair doesn't have a back.
Now that I have the structural elements done, my husband, my daughter, and I all ended up with Covid and I was out for 12 days and couldn't work on anything, much less my own costume.  I had planned to premiere this and the new and improved Doctor Doom at a local comic con in February, but we were still home sick and besides, our costumes were nowhere near being finished.  So, I had to wait until the opera was over so I could go back to work on at least my costume for the next comic con in Waco in April, the week after the opera. 

I took all the fur off my first tail and used it to cover my third tail. I safety pinned everything in place to get an idea of how it needed to sew together around the curved shape. I had been working with a scrap to begin with from the second squirrel I made for Wind in the Willows and there wasn't any more of this same fur left in the shop. I thought I was going to need more fur, so I took apart the second tail that had popped to use it.  As you can see from the photo it reads significantly darker than the original fur, so I was going to put that piece in the part of the tail that is the least seen, and theoretically would be in shadow. Once I had the whole thing pinned, I slipped it off like a sock and turned the thing inside out.  At that point I could see that I actually had plenty of fur and didn't need the extra piece.  I just did a little creative cutting and basically trimmed off two triangle shapes from the sides of the lower portion, sewed them together up the middle and then added them back upside down in the spot where the darker fur had been. Then it was just a matter of sewing all the sections together and slipping it back on the frame. I sewed bias tape on the top and bottom and ran elastic through the channel to close it up.  I sewed snaps onto my elastic straps to go around my bra straps.  Then the last thing to do was to cut slits in my jacket to run the wide straps through to go around my bra straps to keep it upright.  I guessed wrong the first time and cut the slit too high.  Luckily I still had scraps from when I altered it originally and used barge cement to patch the slit back together.  The next slit I put in below the yoke and that was the perfect height. 
 At the same time, I've now lost 30 of my 40 pandemic pounds, so I needed a new body suit as well.  I used the pattern that I drafted for my Scarlet Witch cosplay and made it up in quilted brown velveteen.  I'll use a separating zipper to close up the CB seam but install it above where the tail attaches to the lumbar support belt. After I did the first fitting I realized that I needed the leotard to come much further down to cover up more of my butt, so I patterned an inset piece to add some extra coverage.  I hemmed the legs and armholes as well as the neckline, then I installed the zipper.  After that I used twill tape to add some lingerie straps to keep everything in place since so much is riding on being attached to my bra straps. I still need to add fur trim to my bodysuit around the neckline in the front and the legs.  I have the right fur that matches my jacket, but I couldn't find it Friday, so that will have to be put on later.  Originally the bodysuit pattern called for snaps in the crotch.  I didn't want to deal with that, but now that I've worn it to a con, I realize that if I had installed snaps, then I might have attempted to use the bathroom while I was there.  As it was, I just didn't drink or eat anything for the 4 hours we were there.  And, I discovered when I got home, that my stitching had ripped almost all the way at the seam.  So I will add in an extra couple of inches there, maybe a lycra panel with some stretch to it and then install snaps,

I have been unhappy with my ears since I first made them.  I had used matching fur for the outside but a darker fur for the inside instead of pink.  I don't know why I decided to do that, but I immediately hated it and had been wanting to replace it with pink ever since. I ripped them apart and replace the brown fur with pink flannel for the insides of the ears and then restitched them back on the headband using a curved needle.

My Goodwill Uggs are difficult to walk in, they are slightly too big and have no arch support.  I bought really great insoles from Amazon and those helped tremendously.
Getting into the whole thing I can do almost completely by myself.  I need someone to zip me up in the back, but that's it.  Getting out of it though, I need help.  Once I get the tail elastic snapped around my bra straps, I can't reach them again to unsnap them.  It's the quantum.  I also can't unzip myself.  The other thing that was odd was that my tail seemed to lean heavily to my left side.  I don't know if that's an elastic issue or what.  I kept whacking people going up and down the vendor rows without meaning to.   I did get a lot of compliments on my costume.  Squirrel Girl seems to make so many people happy. I was asked to sign an autograph, I lost count of how many people took my photo.  And when I was sitting down the people behind me asked if they could pet my tail.  One guy refused to believe that it was faux fur.  Everyone asked how I made the tail.  One person thought that my wig was my real hair. 
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Centex Comic Con Waco, 2022

Doctor Doom

I never did finish attaching the Doom armor for the Skellington contest and then the upper body pieces fell apart anyway because all I could get at the last minute was brads.  Plus the helmet shape was all wrong and didn't sit correctly on his head, so I'm remaking the helmet as well using the Kamuri Cosplay patterns from She Kills Monsters.
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Wandavision cosplay

10/31/2021

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Rob and I are just in love with WandaVision.  When the Halloween episode aired I just knew we had to do that for our next cosplay.  Our anniversary is on Valentine's Day so I got us these super cute matching T-shirts.  Since I'm done with both the musical and the opera costumes way ahead of schedule, I decided to start working on this project during Spring Break.  I have never in my 20+ years of working at MCC, not had to work on the opera during Spring Break, so I am very excited that I get to do this so soon.  Hopefully we will have conventions again soon.  If Greater Austin Comic Con happens, we'll be ready.
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Vision

 As you know, Amazon is my go to place these days for online shopping.  I was able to order most of the things I needed for Vision's costume.  The Sentai suit will need to have it's face cut out and it's hands and feet cut off.  I'll have to make his cape with the stand up collar out of 5 yds of yellow poly satin that I got from Amazon. Then I can use a lycra scrap for the diamond on his chest.  I'll use the scraps from the Sentai suit to make the green stripe down the sides of the shorts.  I have a ton of plastic gemstones for his mind stone too. Easy peasy.

Production Process

Vision's suit was super simple to do.  I cut the hands and feet off of the morph suit, since he had shoes and sock and gloves that went over it and didn't need the extra layer.  I cut a hole in the face and used some fabric from the feet to widen the top of the forehead to give the mindstone a place to be glued to.  Then I hemmed the opening with a channel for elastic so it would fit snugly around his face.  I used some scrap yellow lycra to make the patch for the chest and used stitch witchery to heat set it in place and then zigzagged around the edges to keep it there.  I used E6000 to glue the mindstone to the morph suit.  Then all I had to do was make the cape out of the poly satin that I bought.  I used boning in the collar to keep it upright.

Scarlet Witch

I have gained 40 lbs during the pandemic and as we all know, plus sized anything is hit and miss, so I decided pretty early on that I would need to make the bodysuit.  I chose red stretch velvet which I will back with coutil so that it keeps it's structure like a corset..  I'm using the Yana Han cosplay pattern for that. It calls for lacing up the back like a corset, but Rob is lousy with lacing, so I'm putting a zipper up the back instead.  On the show Wanda only wears pink tights underneath, I'll probably wear it over flesh colored tights too. My calves have always been too big for most boots, so I found boots that were shorter and much lower in the back, hopefully they'll fit. I'm also making the cape and the headpiece.  The headpiece will be out of L200 foam and painted red. I found a great tutorial on you tube, which I will share here.  I'll either wear my Nightmare Nurse or my Squirrel Girl wig, even though my hair is currently dyed red.
Check back during Spring Break for more updates!

Production Process

I did the first mock up for my body suit during spring break.  That's the first and second set of photos. The legs were cut way too high and the neckline was way too low.  Also, the pattern didn't have any straps to keep the bodice up.  So I had to alter the pattern a lot. 

My second attempt was out of muslin, and even though I made the legs lower and the neckline higher, it still wasn't working. I definitely needed straps.  That's the third row of photos.

 I ended up draping a new pattern based on the design lines of the Yana Han pattern.  At that point I gave up on the idea of backing it with coutil and just went with buying a new bra and a pair of Spanx.  Also, I lost the 40 lbs I'd gained during the pandemic, so that helped a lot. That's the fourth row of photos.

At that point I felt pretty confident that my new pattern would work so I went ahead and cut it out of my four way stretch fabric, nixxed the zipper up the back and the hook and eye closure in the crotch and just sewed it together.  I put in the elatic at the legs like the pattern called for, and also put in elastic at the armholes.  I thought I might need elastic at the neckline, but as it turned out, I didn't.  That's the fifth row of photos.

In the mean time I made the cape.  Disappointingly, even after losing the 40 lbs, I still couldn't zip up the boots, so I removed the zippers up the back and added in a couple of inches of red vinyl on either side and then put the zippers back in.  Now I don't even have to unzip them to slip them on.

I did the headpiece last.  I used all my experience on She Kills Monsters, to do a much better job on it than I would have had I tried to do it before.  I learned so much from Jason on that show.  So I traced the pattern off the screen on the youtube video and cut the shapes out of EVA foam. I glued them together with contact cement and then painted them with two coats of plastidip.  I used gray primer, then two coats of gloss red and two coats of glossy clear coat to protect the paint job.  I used spray adhesive to back to foam with pink felt and used wig pins to attach it to my wig as per the instructions in the video.

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Robert E Howard Days, 2021

6/12/2021

2 Comments

 
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My first experience of Conan was the Schwarzenegger movies, which I loved. About 20 years later, when my son was in daycare, we spent a lot of time hanging out with his buddy Robbie and Robbie's mom Beth at our pool on summer afternoons while both of our husbands were still at work.  She was (and still is) one of our librarians at MCC and loved REH.  Beth introduced me to a movie about his life called The Whole Wide World that had come out in 1996 with Vincent D'Onofrio as REH and Renee Zellweger as Novalyne.  I hadn't known that REH was from Texas.  The movie was very interesting and sad (I also didn't know that he'd killed himself). Beth also told me that they had a Barbarian Festival in his hometown of Cross Plains and that she had wanted to go to it.  That was such an exciting thing.  We had already missed it that year, but we wanted to make plans to go next year.  Unfortunately, that never happened.  Fifteen years later my husband and I took a trip to Odessa to see their replica of the Globe Theatre and on the way back home we drove through Cross Plains to see REH's house that had been turned into a museum.  It was 11:00pm when we got there, so we sadly took some bad photos in the dark and then went on home.  We wanted to go last year, but the pandemic cancelled everything.  So here I am, seventeen years later, finally getting to go experience this wonderful, weird experience now called Robert E. Howard Days.

Groups that make Howard Days Happen

REH Museum
 The Robert E. Howard Museum is located at the junction of Texas State Highway 36 and Avenue J in Cross Plains,Texas. The museum was the family home of author Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in 1994 and this year, a Texas State Historical Marker was added to the site.
Robert E. Howard Days
Since 1986, people have been coming from all around the world to Howard Days to celebrate the life and writings of acclaimed author Robert E. Howard. Held at the Robert E. Howard House & Museum in Cross Plains, Texas, it is a two-day gathering of fans, scholars, writers, artists, historians and enthusiasts, all gathered together in fellowship to celebrate and discuss the life, work and legacy of the incomparable Robert E. Howard.
REH Foundation
The Foundation was created in 2006 and is organized to foster understanding of the life and works of Robert E. Howard. Its goal is to honor Howard’s legacy as a skillful, prolific and successful writer of fantasy, regional, horror, action and adventure stories in a wide variety of genres. The mission of the Foundation is to promote its belief in the importance of imagination and creative writing. ​
REH Foundation Press
The REH Foundation Press was created in 2007 to help insure that all of REH’s works would be available to readers in their original form as they were written, with an absolute minimum of editing. Those familiar with the history of REH publishing know that various editors over the years have taken liberties to edit as they please, changing stories and poetry in all kinds of ways. The Wandering Star series of books that began in 1998 with The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, followed by more books from Subterranean Press and Del Rey, returned REH’s most famous characters and stories to their original form, with editing by various REHF Board members. The REH Foundation Press series continues this work, extending it to ALL of the works of REH. Each book in the 22 volume REHFP series has been edited by REHF board members, and includes many works first appearance in print. REHFP also publishes collections of works related to REH’s friends, family and life, for those that want to know more about REH the person. ​
Howard History
Welcome to Howard History, a repository for the Robert E. Howard-related writings of Rob Roehm.  Roehm has "written articles for all of the Howard publications that I’m aware of, contributed to most of the Howard websites, edited books, and even wrote a couple. I’ve unearthed “new” Howard letters and stories. I’ve been to every place in the United States that Howard mentions going to, and every known place that his family lived."

Schedule

FRIDAY JUNE 11
8:30 am until gone: Coffee and donuts at the Pavilion, compliments of Project Pride
9 am – 4 pm: Robert E. Howard House Museum and Grounds open to the public. The adjacent Alla Ray Morris Pavilion will be open all day until late night.
9 am – 4 pm: REH Postal Cancellation Souvenir-Cross Plains Post Office. FRIDAY ONLY.
9:15 am – 12 Noon: Bus Tour of Cross Plains & Surrounding Areas. FRIDAY ONLY.
10 am to 4 pm: REH Foundation Press canopy and Dealers Area open on grounds east of Museum.
10 am – 4 pm: Cross Plains Public Library open. Original Robert E. Howard typescripts along with original Weird Tales magazines will be on display.
NOON: Hot Dog Lunch hosted by Project Pride at the Pavilion. Donations are welcome!
12:45 p.m.:  Historical Marker Presentation at the REH Museum.
1:30 pm: PANEL: REH in the Comics. This overview panel will discuss the history of Howard characters and stories presented in a comic book format. Mark Finn moderates Roy Thomas, Fred Blosser, Patrice Louinet, Jay Zetterberg.  AT FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
Following this panel: Presentation of the 2020-2021 Robert E. Howard Foundation Awards.
3:00-4:00 pm PANEL: Roy Thomas Autograph Session. AT FUMC.
5:30 – 6:30 pm: Silent Auction items available for viewing & bidding at Banquet site
6:30 pm: Robert E. Howard Celebration Banquet & Silent Auction at the Family Life Center of the Baptist Church on Main Street. Guest of Honor Speaker: Roy Thomas.
9:00 pm PANEL: Fists at the Ice House. Our perennial favorite panel about Howard’s boxing (and most prolific) writings. Panelists Mark Finn, Patrice Louinet
Afterward there will be Howard Fellowship at the Pavilion.  All are welcome and adult beverages are allowed.
 
SATURDAY JUNE 12
9 am – 4 pm: Robert E. Howard House Museum open to the public. The adjacent Alla Ray Morris Pavilion will be open all day until late night.
9:15 am – 10:30 am: Cross Plains Walking Tour, conducted by Rusty Burke. Meet at the Ice House (Reed Construction) on Main Street and walk in the steps of Bob Howard.
10 am – 3 pm: Cross Plains Public Library open. Original Robert E. Howard typescripts along with original Weird Tales magazines will be on display.
10 am to 4 pm: REH Foundation Press canopy and Dealers Area open on grounds east of Museum.
11:00 am – 12:30 pm PANEL: The Roy Thomas Interview. Come hear an engaging chat and a Q&A session with our Guest of Honor. AT FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH.
1:00-2:00 pm PANEL: Roy Thomas Autograph Session. AT FUMC.

2:30 pm PANEL: What’s Up with REH? This is our wrap-up panel, devoted to All Things Going On with Robert E. Howard in 2021. AT FUMC
4:00 pm: Tour of REH House Grounds. Rusty Burke will lead a tour around the outside of the Howard Museum.
5:00 pm: Sunset BBQ at the Pavilion. Come and enjoy a real Texas chuck-wagon barbeque!
After BBQ: Porchlight Poetry: Listen to a multi-language reading of Howard’s poem “Cimmeria” + more REH poetry read aloud from the Museum porch. We have a microphone this year!
Afterward there will be Howard Fellowship at the Pavilion.  All are welcome and adult beverages are allowed.

Bus Tour 

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 Rusty Burke narrated our bus tour of the Cross Cut and Burkett areas that were significant to REH. Unfortunately, the landmarks of Bob's time have all but disappeared.  His school in Cross Cut is now a field, and even the school that replaced it has nothing left standing but the arched entryway. The graveyard that Dr. Howard would walk through to visit patients is still there.  Patients and their families would know that he was near because they could hear him whistling. 

The Howard family moved around quite a bit when Bob was young, and spent time staying at the home of another doctor in Burkett, whose house had a gazebo nearby.  Scholars located a gazebo in the correct area and assumed that it was THE gazebo and that the house had already disappeared.  After more research it was discovered that the gazebo and house belonged to an entirely different doctor and was not somewhere that REH had stayed.  The doctor whose house it actually was, was the father of Kathryn Cochran Cravens, an actress and the first female wartime radio correspondent during WWII covering Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The doctor's house that the Howard family had actually stayed at in Burkett, was only recently demolished but Rusty was able to take a photo of it the day before the demolition. The bridge  that REH would have driven over to get from Burkett to Cross Plains is still there.  That's what we got to take photos of. 

Cross Plains Library

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The public library owns all of REH's original manuscripts.  They were on display this week.  They also sell photocopies of them.  Rob bought "The Sword Woman" a Dark Agnes story.  They also had a display of many of the issues of Weird Tales that REH had his stories published in.  Rob and I were both delighted to see an actual Weird Tales magazine but were surprised to find out how thick they were in real life, like thicker than a National Geographic.    It was certainly obvious that what we heard in the panel was true: whoever wrote the most lurid story, got the cover painting.
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REH's original manuscripts
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photocopy of "Dark Agnes" manuscript

REH  Commemorative Cancellation Stamp

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The special postal cancellation stamp is shown above, designed by Marvel artist Becky Cloonan. This is an exclusive souvenir available to HD attendees, only Friday only at the Cross Plains Post Office. So, the price of a stamp gets you an exclusive REH collectible! We got ours on the free postcards of the house from the gift shop.
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Museum postcard front
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Museum postcard back

PANEL #1 Conan Becomes a Comic Book

I was too busy taking notes to get a photo of the panel and Rob didn't think to take one either, so here's some thumbnails from Google.  Fred Blosser has no photos up on the internet at all.  I don't know how he managed that after publishing hundreds of books. But here's a snap from the book signing.  ​
The panelists from left to right:
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Mark Finn moderator, author of Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E Howard, Editor of the magazine The Dark Man: Journal of Robert E Howard Studies, as well as numerous essays on REH.

Jay Zetterberg: Swedish Game Designer, Entertainment VP in charge of licensing at Cabinet Entertainment.

Roy Thomas: Guest of Honor, comic book author, Marvel Editor in Chief under Stan Lee. Worked on Conan from 1970-1980 and again from 1994-1996. Co-created many other Marvel characters such as Vision, Wolverine, Ultron, Valkyrie, Red Sonja, Morbius, and Ghost Rider. Uncredited screen writing work on Conan the Barbarian, co-credited story on Conan the Destroyer. Author of the three volume set Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, as well as many essays.

Patrice Louinet: French, author of The Robert E Howard Guide and numerous essays on REH and his books as well as French adaptations of the comic book.

Fred Blosser: REH/Conan historian, published numerous non-fiction books and essays on REH's writings.
 
These are my notes from the panel that I fleshed out with last names and some dates. It's mostly all paraphrased from what the speakers said.  There are some instances where the exact phrasing was important and those are noted with quotation marks.

Roy:  Readers wrote to Marvel requesting comic book adaptations of other books--LOTR, Doc Savage, Tarzan as well as REH books.  I had  bought a few  of the Conan paperback editions but never really read any of the books, just a couple of pages of the first story in 1969, because I loved the Frank Frazetta covers. Kull was the first character that was adapted.  I wrote to Len Wein who had the rights at that time.  Stan Lee offered $150 an issue, no royalties. I was embarrassed to offer so little for the intellectual property. I felt that was a "paltry sum", so I upped to $200 for Conan; I figured if they didn't sell well, Stan would take it out of my salary.  Stan Lee didn’t know anything about S&S genre so he left me alone to work on it with very little oversight.

I really wanted to get John Buscema to do the art, but I couldn't afford him at the time, so my second choice was Gil Kane, but Stan wouldn't pay for him either, so he got Barry Smith, who was a newbie. I didn't want to change REH more than I needed to but I still had to appeal to Marvel readers. Plus we still had to get Comic Code Authority approval. There were a bunch of rules like you couldn't show exit wounds. Roy said, "if I'd done it 20 years later", after Marvel stopped adhering to the CCA, "I’d have done it differently."  "We did everything we could to subvert the CCA". Fairly early on we took off his horned helmet and gave away his medallion.  Eventually we realized he didn’t need a costume anymore.  “He was naked but for a loincloth.”  Roy made sure REH’s name was on the book, which was something that hadn't been done before for other Intellectual Property. 

The first seven issues of  Conan the Barbarian each sold less than the previous one, so Stan suggested to put humans on the cover, the previous ones had animals on the cover.  So the eighth issue had a human on the cover and that one sold more than the last one.  The next issue also sold more than the last one and Conan was up and running. It wasn't long before we could afford Gil Kane, and finally John Buscema. Conan was the most popular book in the mid 1970’s. For the next 20 years, humans were on the cover, and Conan was never in danger of being cancelled.
 
Fred:  Roy contacted me, in 1971, looking for story plots, for Conan the Barbarian.   In 1974 I got a letter from Roy who was starting a new magazine under the Marvel imprint of Curtis Magazines, to not just attract comic book fans, but to introduce them to the books with background articles etc.. which was Savage Sword of Conan, published in 1974, for which I finished two of REH’s unfinished stories and wrote an original that was a sequel to an original REH. (There will be more about Curtis Magazines and Savage Sword of Conan in the next panel.) My favorite book is King Kull, which took a secondary character in terms of reader interest and make him popular, with artwork by John Severin, about the time when Kull lost the throne and became a wanderer.  Kull, the panelists agreed, is an underappreciated book. Esp. the John Bolton ones. ​
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Savage Sword of Conan
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Kull the Conqueror
Roy: In 1976, after I had moved to California, I had a friend, Ed Summers, who ran a bookstore, who asked me, Who owns the rights to Conan? I said Lyon Sprague de Camp controls some, Glenn Lord of Pasadena Texas, owns some others.  "They don’t talk to each other, it’s complicated". Ed Summers, Ed Pressman, a Hollywood producer, and me saw Pumping Iron together, and Ed Pressman thought Arnold really had star appeal.  Ed Summers suggested Conan as a star vehicle for Arnold, Ed Pressman had never heard of Conan. At that point the Conan paperbacks were out of print.  Ironcially, Arnold's ads for body building products were heavily featured in the Conan comics at the time. The movie idea was shopped to all the film studios, and no one really wanted the property.  Arnold couldn’t speak English which the studios cited as a big problem. Later Arnold was a guest on a Sammy Davis Junior special.  He said he was going to play Conan and SDJ said, “Oh, the comic book character.” Marvel started running promotional ads in Conan books for Arnold Schwarzenegger starring as Conan, but it still took years to get the film made.

Patrice: I grew up on Kirby’s Fantastic 4.  I was a "Marvel zombie” I loved Neal Adams' X-Men. When I bought my first 
Savage Sword of Conan, it was black and white, there were no super heroes, and I thought, "Where’s Spiderman? "  I hated it. Later, I bought a second one and then decided that it was good, then read the paperbacks. My favorite issue is Hawks from the Sea issues #19-27 with Barry Smith art.  That run was also Roy’s fav. I also liked issue #23 Shadow of the Vulture, which introduced Red Sonja into the Hyborian Age.
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Hawks from the Sea
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Shadow of the Vulture
Roy: Luckily others--L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter--had already pieced together the timeline of Conan’s life for the ACE paperbacks released in the 1960's, so it was easier for me to piece together stories. Roy feels that, "If you don’t like it, it’s exploiting, if you like it, it’s extended." I liked writing the Conan comics, but I don't like reading them. I quit writing Conan for 10 years when I went to DC, so I didn’t read them. When I went back to Marvel, and started writing Conan again, I had to go back and buy the 10 years worth of comics to catch up to where the character was now.

Mark: My favorite book is Conan #37 "Curse of the Golden Skull" with Neal Adams guest starring. "It wasn’t supposed to be in color", says Roy.  "It was supposed to be B&W". My other favorite book is Black Colossus. I loved the art, and the inking.

Roy on working with Neal Adams on "Curse of the Golden Skull": Neal drew an "obscene snail". I used the character Rotath and it became the best selling issue of all time, because there was a paper strike, everything went on sale and stayed on sale because they weren’t printing any more new issues.  For DC it was Kirby’s Sandman which sold great but it was supposed to be a one shot, so they ordered a second issue which didn’t sell.  ”Neal Adams was a pain in the ass to work with but his great art made it almost worth working with him… almost.”
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Curse of the Golden Skull
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Black Colossus
Fred: I didn’t like any of the 80’s Conan comics because Roy had left Marvel and wasn't doing them anymore.  Eclipse Comics did an adaptation of Pigeons from Hell in 1988. It was Scott Hampton’s passion project.  I liked that run. Marvel had an enormous influence with Conan, making the movies happen, and the video games in late 80’s. 
 Roy: Stan wanted to start more horror books b/c they were selling a lot at DC. Instead they did some Lovecraft adaptations, Cthulhu stories, Harlan Ellison, more Howard. I thought if they like Conan, they’d like these stories too. My Conan stuff was still coming out in the early 80’s even after Ient to DC. Conan comics sold well throughout the early 1980's due to the movies popularity but then tanked. I had hired the artists originally and wasn’t overmanaged by Stan, but when I came back in the 90’s, I wasn’t able to choose my artists and had to get approval for things, so I wasn’t happy being micromanaged, and I quit again after two years. Marvel dropped Conan after that. 

Jay: 
Marvel was paying a ridiculously low, one time, flat fee per comic for the intellectual property.  Marvel was not smart to drop Conan, because later, they had to buy it back.
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Patrice: In 1980, Roy did a comic book version of Almuric with art by Tim Conrad, for Epic illustrated, an adult Marvel imprint, not subject to the Comics Code Authority.  Almuric was originally published posthumously in Weird Tales in serialized form.  When Howard died, the first half was finished, but the second half was just a first draft and unfinished. Farnsworth Wright, editor of Weird Tales, pieced them together and finished the story. At that point Marvel had the rights to sell it as a movie and it was shopped around. However, movie studio executives told them that “Tim Conrad can’t draw women” so we don’t want to buy your movie.  In 1986 Epic Illustrated was shut down due to it being too expensive to run.  The last issue was #34; in it was Death of a Legend, as tribute to REH, story by Roy and pencils and inking by Sandy Plunkett. There was no color. It was about REH’s life and death. 
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Almuric
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Death of a Legend
Roy: The 1990’s were the dark ages of Conan comic books.  Dark Horse reprinted Almuric in 1991.  I came back to Marvel in 1994 and stayed till 1996 to write Conan. Cross Plains Comics existed from 1999-2001.  It was almost entirely reprints , but they were good reprints.  They kept the ball in play in a way that Marvel didn’t.  It was REH focused.  I was a silent partner, Richard Ashford was the brainchild and had been an editor of the comics at Marvel before starting Cross Plains Comics. Richard got me on board.  Cross Plains Comics won an award for best new company.  It was the only time I got to work with Richard Corben.  I got to do Wolfshead and  one issue of Red Sonja.

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Patrice: In late 2000, I adapted and edited the Conan stories for the European market on Wandering Star Press. Robert E. Howard's Complete Conan of Cimmeria, Vol. 1 1932-1933.  There was a different writer and artist for every graphic novel.  It took a long time to develop the series.  One Howard story by one creative team and no one is allowed to do more.  Each book has a very different style to the others; there is not a standardized look to Conan. Volume 1 was published in 2003.  They are now on their 12th book. (Click here to read an interview with Patrice on his labor of love.)
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Cross Plains Comics edition of Wolfshead.
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Patrice's collection
Jay: I'm a little young to remember Bronze Age comics, and when I was growing up, there weren't any comics in Sweden at the time. Red Nails is my favorite. Dark Horse ran six Conan series from 2004-16.  My favorite Conan was the first series by Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord, who brought the title back from the dead. The art was only pencils and color, no inking.  It had a “weird non-focus on Conan’s face so that you can imagine what he looks like yourself.”  
 
Dark Horse published ten issues of Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword. It featured more of REH's characters besides just Conan: Kull, Dark Agnes, Solomon Kane,  Bran Mak Morn, Sailor Steve Costigan. When Marvel got the rights back in 2018 it had to fight tooth and nail to get Dark Horse to reissue the series in a three volume anthology. ​
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Dark Horse's first Conan series with no inking
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Savage Sword
Fred: Bob McLain, founder of Pulp Hero Press, had already published my book Savage Scrolls Vol 1: Scholarship from the Hyborian Age in 2017 in both paperback and e-book formats.  This book was purely literary criticism. Bob wanted to start a new line of sword and sorcery books and wanted to include my fiction.  It was to be called Savage Scrolls, after my previously published book, and was a collection of eight short stories in the sword and sorcery genre.  Volume One was released in 2020, Volume Two is already in the works, and there are plans for a third and fourth installment.

Patrice: I took a long rest after my PhD dissertation on REH was published in 1990.  Then I wrote the English translation of his dissertation.  Since then I have written numerous things for Howard Foundation Press.

Roy I wrote a lot of introductions to books that were translated into Spanish but I didn’t keep the original articles. Later I was contacted because (someone, didn't catch the name) wanted to reprint my essays in English, I had to track down the Spanish copies and have them re-translated back into English. I wrote a three volume exploration of my work on Conan called Barbarian Life. It reads like a director's commentary on the first 100 comics of Conan. “I don’t think I’ve done REH justice.  I’m always aware that this is the comic book version.”  
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Jay: After Dark Horse ran its course, Marvel got the rights back in 2018, started publishing in 2019. Two years ago I got a call from an older lady who said she had tons of our stuff. It turned out to be Richard Ashford's wife.  She said that after Cross Plains Comics had gone out of business, Richard sent tons of pallets of print material to a warehouse in New Jersey.  I called Marvel and they were very glad to be able to reclaim all that material, which included Kull, Red Sonja, Worms of the Earth, some of it was damaged but most was salvaged.  The pandemic forced comic book creators to cut lines.  Many books were cancelled.  Dark Agnes and Solomon Kane were both cut. Marvel is doing a Howardverse with Soloman Kane, Dark Agnes, and it is set in REH’s house.

Roy Thomas Autograph

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​​The Howard Home​

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Texas State Historical Marker, 2021
It was such a special experience to be able to tour the home with one or more docents in every room who could tell you all about each piece and answer any questions you might have.  The first room on the right of the entrance is the parlour.  There was a glassed in book case that contained all of Dr. Howard's books.  Not one medical book, they were mostly religious texts.  Another bookcase contained the remaining 68 volumes of the original 300+ of REH's books which had been donated to the Howard Payne College Library upon his death. They were returned to the Museum in 2012. The parlour connected with the dining room which had an Art Noveau sculpture of Cleopatra that REH had purchased on a trip to New Orleans with his parents when he was 13. On the table were copies of school papers with his teacher's corrections and comments in the margins.  The next room was the kitchen, then Robert's room, which was originally a sleeping porch that they had enclosed. It was roped off so that you couldn't go in there, but it was very narrow and full of furniture, a dresser, a twin bed, a chest, his writing desk and stool. As big a man as he was it's amazing that he fit in there. There was a window between Robert's room and his parents. The last room was his parents' bedroom which had windows in every wall.  His mother had tuberculosis and the windows were left open all the time to give her more air circulation.  Dr. Howard lived there eight more years after his wife and son's deaths until he died too.  Later owners added onto the house by adding an inside bathroom on the right side of the hallway after the kitchen and another bedroom on the left side after Robert's room.  That room is where the gift shop is located. The gift shop only takes cash, but there's an ATM a block away in the 7-11.  We bought matching T-shirts for $15 each.  The gift shop also has an amazing array of free items, like photocopies of his birth certificate, funeral invoice, directions to his grave, bookmarks,  etc...
The video was made by the REH Foundation and highlights many of the small objects in the house.  It is narrated by Rusty Burke.

Silent Auction

The silent auction began an hour before the banquet.  I did not expect there to be hundreds of items there. I bid on three items and won two.  Issue #1 and #2 of Valeria and Issue #3 of Conan.  They were all reprints, but I'm Ok with that.  Rob bid on a lot of things and won most of them, including a copy of "Red Nails".  He also won a 2007 Vanguard calendar
"Masters of Fantastic Art" for me. We ended up paying $17 for 9 items. All the money goes to the REH Foundation to fund maintenance on the house.
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The Banquet

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The banquet was the only thing that we had to pay for tickets for.  It was $15 a seat and they served a pretty mean chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans.  For dessert there was peach cobbler and vanilla ice cream.  We sat with a daddy/daughter duo from Utah.  He had taken his son to Howard Days in 2019, and was supposed to take his 12 year old daughter, Emma, last year but it didn't happen due to the pandemic.  So this year was her first time.  The other two gentlemen at our table were friends from Houston that had been coming for several years.  The make up of the gathering was the same as at a Rush concert, it was a real sausage fest. There were 165 attendees and I counted 24 women, not including the docents: four daughters, and the rest were wives like me.  I don't think there were any unaccompanied females all weekend. I made the joke that at least I shouldn't have to queue for the bathroom all weekend, but I was wrong.
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Our Guest of Honor, Roy Thomas, spoke about his career in making Conan Comics for Marvel.  It was basically a rehash of what he said in the panel that afternoon, but longer and more focused on his work. He mentioned how his then girlfriend, Danette, now his wife, created the DC Conan knockoff, Arak, Son of Thunder, a title she created but didn't get story writing credit for until issue #12. Dann was also the model for the character Danette in the What if? story where Conan time travels to present day New York.

​The button below will take you to the recording of his keynote speech.
The Cromcast
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Table favors and program.

PANEL #2  Roy Thomas 

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Guest of Honor: Roy Thomas, I didn't get the moderator's name.

​Roy is originally from Jackson, Missouri.  He said it was a very small town.  His first comic experience was as a fan boy. Roy grew up reading All Star Comics, he loved JSA, the forerunner of Justice League.  His mom used to read them to him until he learned to read before first grade. There was no Kindergarten back then, there was also no 12th grade, and you only went to 11th grade if you were going to college. "The father of comic book fandom" Jerry Bails (who also loved JSA and would soon become Roy's BFF)  had recently started up a correspondence with Gardner Cooper Fox and had bought some of his original JSA books from him in 1959. Roy had also written to Gardner also asking about JSA books and Gardner gave him Jerry's name and address.  They struck up an immediate and prolific correspondence about their love for Golden Age comics. On a later trip to New York, Jerry stopped by the DC office and saw a syfy fanzine called "Xero", which was published by Dick Lupoff  from 1960-63.  (Dick's book about this time period is called All in Color for a Dime and was published in 1970. ) Jerry immediately had the idea to make a fanzine about Golden Age comic books and enlisted Roy as co-editor. It was called "Alter-Ego",  and it was the first superhero fanzine running for 10 issues from 1961-69.

Roy graduated with his BA in Education in 1961 and taught high school English in St. Louis for a time afterward.  He got a fellowship from Scottish Rite to attend George Washington University in D.C. and had accepted an Assistant Editor job on Superman for DC in 1965, requiring him to quit his teaching job and move to New York.   He worked for DC and attended GWU for approximately two weeks when he saw an advertisement in the NY Times that Marvel was hiring writers.  Roy was given a writer’s test  which was four pages of Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four art that he had to fill in all the speech bubbles and narration blocks. Roy got a call and was asked to have a lunch meeting with Stan the next day. Stan offered him the job 15 minutes after they met but never told him what he thought about his writers' test. Roy didn't hesitate to quit his fellowship and his DC job and make the move.*see footnote for the whole story. 

When Roy first met John Romita Sr.  in 1965,  John was drawing DC romance comics,  but he'd gotten his start drawing Captain America in 1954.  Roy knew that he’d done Capt. America, which surprised John because no one else remembered him from that. Roy was hired in the first wave of college-educated comics creators like Denny O'Neil, who was hired just a few weeks after Roy.  Stan liked to hire college people, because he wasn’t able to go to college himself. Stan was 18 years older than Roy and at the time was both editing and writing. Characters that Roy co-created while at Marvel were X-Men--Wolverine, Havok, Banshee, Sunfire with Len Wein; Avengers--Vision, Ultron, Carol Danvers, Valkyrie; REH--Conan, Red Sonja, Kull; as well as Luke Cage, and Ghostrider.  Stan had been working under the publisher Martin Goodman who he liked very much. However, in 1972, Martin quit publishing the comics and gave the job to his son Chip, who Stan did not like working under.  Stan managed to become publisher of the comics division and at that point divided the company into a triumvirate. Roy became the Story Editor,  John Verpoorten was the Production Manager, and Frank Giacoia  was the Assistant Art Director, because even though Stan couldn't draw, he wanted the title of Art Director for himself. Roy said about Frank, that he had seen Gunga Din when he was 15 and it was his favorite movie.  Frank would watch Gunga Din while he was inking, usually Jack Kirby's Captain America.  Roy said that Frank probably watched that movie 50 times while they were working together.. 

Roy wasn't happy with this new arrangement and was thinking of quitting and going back to DC, just a few weeks after his promotion.  A friend advised him to stay, saying that everything would change and it did. Right after that, Stan made Roy Editor in Chief and kicked Frank back down to Artist.  After 2+ years as Editor in Chief, Roy was sort of fired in 1974 or sorta quit, depending on who is telling the story. Stan had decided that Roy wasn’t a team player, and Roy said he was a great team player if he was the captain of the team.  Roy had written a memo to Stan about some things he felt should change and Stan said that the memo should be Roy's resignation as Editor in Chief. Stan promoted Len Wein and Marv Wolfman to Co-Editors.  Roy didn’t want to work under them even though he had hired them.  Roy didn’t like being in charge of everyone, but he also didn't want to be just a writer. So Roy drew up his own unique contract allowing him to write and also be his own editor, which Stan agreed to,  so basically Roy was free-lancing for Marvel from 1974-1980.   

Towards the end of the 1970's Stan and Roy had moved from New York to California.  Roy is credited with the idea to adapt Star Wars into a comic book series which editor Jim Shooter (Editor in Chief from 1978-1987) said kept Marvel from going bankrupt in the 1980's. Roy said that at the time, Shooter was doing a great job, getting the creatives treated with more respect, getting the books out on time, but that after he fixed all of Marvel's administrative problems, he started trying to "fix" things he saw as creative problems, and that heavy-handed, my way or he highway attitude, ran off a lot of talent, including Roy.

In 1981 Roy signed an exclusive three year deal with DC after a contract dispute with Shooter. While at DC, Roy created Star Girl with his wife, Dann. Dann also created Arak ,Son of Thunder but didn't get story writing credit till issue #12. Roy ended up hating working for DC and after his contract was up, he (and Dann) went back to Marvel. Stan invited him back to be Editor in Chief once more after having gone through six other editors since Roy quit the first time.  

James Warren was the first publisher to get into black and white magazine of comics in 1958 with Famous Monsters of Filmland.  Roy said in another interview, "I became a buyer of the Warren mags with Famous Monsters of Filmland #1 in 1958, which I bought uptown over my lunch hour and took to my senior English class... to the dismay of my teacher.  I was her top student, and she let it be known that she was disappointed in me dragging around this magazine with a picture of a man in a Frankenstein mask and a--well, I don't know how she described the woman on the cover.  I made sure I kept it under my desk through the whole class, so it wouldn't get confiscated."  FMOF did really well and gave rise to more black and white horror titles like Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, which ran from 1959-1983. At some point prior to the mid 1970's  James Warren offered Stan a membership at the Friar’s Club if he wouldn’t do any B&W comics that would compete with his own titles. Stan agreed, joined the Friar's Club and then pushed Goodman at Marvel to get into the B&W comics business. Goodman developed an imprint of Marvel, called Curtis Magazines. Because this new format was a magazine and not a comic, it didn't have to adhere to the CCA so more creators wanted to work on it.  It featured more adult content like profanity, nudity, and violence  and therefore drew a more adult audience. Curtis Magazines only ran from 1971-75 but in those four years it published 31 new titles, among them horror comics such as Dracula Lives, The Haunt of Horror, Master of Terror, Monster Madness, Tales of the Zombie, and Vampire Tales which were competing with Warren's  Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella titles for a share of the market.  Although the Curtis horror titles were short lived, The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Planet of the Apes, and Doc Savage ran a long time and did very well. Savage Sword of Conan was by far the most successful of all of these titles.  Roy was the editor and chief writer for the first 60 issues. The SSOC series was the longest running Conan title and ran from 1974-1995.

Questions:
What's the deal with Morbius? The CCA had previously forbidden the use of vampires and werewolves, but by 1971, it was time to update the code.  They knew readership wasn’t 8-9 years old anymore. The updated code said it was all right to use vampires, werewolves etc in “high caliber works of art:” like Dracula, Frankenstein, etc…   At that time Stan needed Roy to  take over writing Fantastic Four or Spiderman. Roy wanted to do FF, but Stan made him do Spiderman. Stan made him put in a vampire. Roy thought that was stupid but complied. Roy wanted to make the vampire character a super villain, but not Dracula. Roy decided he had a blood disease that made him drink blood.  Roy created Morbius the Living Vampire with Bill Kane. Roy wrote two stories about Morbius and then other people took it over.  Jared Leto called him and is doing a movie adaptation of it, which is coming out in 2022.
 
Talk about your work on Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer.  Roy was an uncredited consultant on the first movie. Ed Pressman, the producer, paid Roy $10,000 for 2 days of work and then Roy never heard from him again. Later Ed called him up out of the blue, after Roy had written the screenplay for Fire and Ice with Gerry Conway. The Conan movie was fixing to come out finally, after about six years of being held up in Hollywood red-tape.  Ed said, "BTW, you remember that 10 grand I paid you ? Dino de Laurentiis is going to repay me all the money I paid for the first movie. I have a check here for 10 grand but it’s made out to you."  Roy said he'd endorse it and 5 minutes later his doorbell rang and a messenger was there with the check waiting for Roy's signature.

Roy co-wrote the screenplay for the second movie with Gerry Conway. Roy said that Conan the Destroyer was a train wreck. Everything was getting cheaper, and not in a good way.  There was less budget money. The first movie was made in Spain, the second in Mexico. Roy and Gerry wrote five drafts. At the time Roy was building a home in San Pedro, and since he got paid for every draft, he kept adding to the house. Dino hired Roger Donaldson to direct Destroyer. Roy and Gerry gave Roger the draft, told him to show it to Dino, and couple days later, the movie is going forward, but without Donaldson as director. Dino pulled Roger off the Conan movie to do Mutiny on the Bounty instead.  Dino got a new director, Richard Fliescher, but Roy and Gerry felt he was just going through the motions.  Roy gave Richard a Conan comic book, to give him a better idea of what they were going for. Gerry and Roy wanted to bring Valeria back to life. Dino like that idea and kept it but got rid of Roy and Gerry and replaced them with Stanley Mann.  The only thing that got filmed as Roy and Gerry wrote it was the introduction of Zula.

Roy and Gerry were responsible for getting Grace Jones her role as Zula. In the Conan comic books there was a Black male character named Zula with Mokawk hair. He became a female warrior for the movie because although they didn't have a finished script yet they had to hire the main cast.  The casting director wanted to get an Asian actress for the role.  Gerry said he and Roy were thinking of Grace Jones.  So that’s how she got cast. Director Dino de Laurentiis had told Roy and Gerry that he didn't want any rats, priests, or leeches, in his movie. The translator had called them blood suckers, so Roy and Gerry thought he meant vampires. Roy said it was depressing working with Dino and then he fired them. The Writers Guild of America looked at all the drafts and compared them to decide who would get the writing credit.  The decision was that the credits should read, "Story by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, Screenplay by Stanley Mann". The film was already in the can so Roy and Gerry were offered $5,000 to forego the screen credit so they wouldn’t have to redo them, but they said no to the money to give the finger to Dino, and made him redo the credits to include them.

*Here's the excerpt on the Marvel Writer's Test from a conversation between Roy and Stan in May, 1998 that was published in Comic Book Artist #2.  I also included the first four of the Jack Kirby pages from Fantastic Four Annual #2 as an example of the Writer's Test.

Roy: Now—about the famous "Marvel Writer's Test": Sol Brodksy and Flo Steinberg told me that you put an ad for writers in the New York Times, and had hundreds of people applying.
Stan: It's news to me, but it sounds like something we might have done.
Roy: Did you have to read a lot of the tests?
Stan: I probably gave them to somebody else to read. I really don't remember.
Roy: The reason I'm curious is that supposedly I was hired on the basis of taking this writer's test while I was working at DC.
Stan: Then I must have been reading them.
Roy: We met the next day after I turned it in. You offered me a job a few minutes later, but you never referred to the test then or at any other time, so I never knew if you actually read it or if I was hired because I was already working for Mort Weisinger over at DC. [laughs]
Stan: I think I liked your personality.
Roy: It was always strange to me: I went in there expecting to discuss this writing test and figured that I must have passed—but you never mentioned it! And I'm still waiting!
Stan: [laughs] Maybe that's the case, Roy. I just don't remember.
Roy: We're actually going to print one page of that test in Comic Book Artist. The test was four Jack Kirby pages from Fantastic Four Annual #2.
Stan: Oh! When I wanted people to put dialogue over the pictures? That was a good idea!
Roy: You had Sol or someone take out the dialogue. It was just black-and-white. Other people like Denny O'Neil and Gary Friedrich took it. But soon afterwards we stopped using it.
Stan: That was a clever idea! I'm proud of me! [laughs] You know, I probably did read yours and most of the others, because I know I hate to read scripts, but if it was just pictures with dialogue balloons, I could have read that very quickly, and chances are that I did read them all. And chances are that I'm a lousy judge, so I probably liked yours! [laughs]

PANEL #3  What's Up with REH in 2021? 

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From left to right, Fred Malmberg, Jay Zetterberg, and Steve Booth.
Cabinet Entertainment
Conan.com
Panelists are all from Cabinet Entertainment, which now owns all of the Conan intellectual property.

Fred Malmberg is the Founder of Swedish toy company, Target Games (table top and RPG games) and CEO of Paradox Entertainment, which was started by Fred to adapt all of the Target games into video games. Paradox Entertainment bought the intellectual rights to Conan before Paradox was split into different companies but Fred retained control over the video game segment as well as the rights to Conan intellectual property, Fred moved his company to LA to be closer to Hollywood and to pursue film and tv licensing opportunities. Paradox was later bought out by Cabinet Entertainment in 2015, Fred said that Conan is more popular in Europe than the US. 95% of fans live there and they have more people) Very popular in Norway and they think like Conan.  Turkish people believe Conan is Sumerian.    

Charles "Steve" Booth is the American CEO of Cabinet Entertainment which owns the intellectual property of Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane, among others, and licenses it for film and television production. They were responsible for the 2009 Kull the Conqueror with Kevin Sorbo, as well as the 2011 Conan reboot with Jason Momoa. It also creates table top games, video games, toys, collectibles, apparel, and other related merchandise of their intellectual property.  Cabinet Entertainment donates both money and products to the continuing support of the REH Museum. the REH Foundation, and Howard Days.

Jay Zetterberg is also Swedish.  Jay started out at Cabinet being in charge of the licensing for the comics division. Jay is currently in charge of all creative licensing approvals for everything that Cabinet owns, Jay was a member of Friday's panel as well, as his particular area of expertise is Conan comics.

Background on the REH Intellectual Property and what's being done with it

Books:
Here's a short publication history of REH works :
Gnome Press gathered all the known REH material at the time and published it in seven volumes in hardback between 1950-1957. Lancer/Ace published twelve volumes of Conan stories in paperback between 1967 and 1977 but they were heavily edited by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter and not all of it was original Howard material.  However, with fantastical cover art by Frank Frazetta they caught the popular imaginations and sold very well. Donald M Grant published eleven illustrated volumes of REH's original Conan stories from 1974-89.  Berkley published three volumes also of REH Conan stories in 1977. Bantam continued in the Lancer/Ace tradition of publishing seven more non-REH Conan stories from 1978-82. Tor published 43 volumes of new, not REH Conan stories from 1982-2003, as well as re-issuing all the Bantam volumes, plus three omnibuses. Del Rey published three illustrated volumes called Conan of Cimmeria between 2003 and 2005 that included notes, rough drafts, and manuscripts,

The REH Foundation Press is currently continuing the work that Del Rey started by bringing Conan stories back to their original form.  The REH Foundation acquired all REH publishing rights in 2007 for first edition print runs of REH's letters, poems, fiction, and biography. They have since published all of REH's work in its original, unedited, unexpurgated form. 

Fred Copyright has a time limit everywhere but it is different between countries and copyright laws vary.  All Howard stories are copyrighted for 70 years in most countries, so all of them are now in public domain. Cabinet currently  has ten federal lawsuits  in litigation for copyright infringement.  Here's an example of copyright infringement.  Anyone can publish "The Tower of the Elephant" by REH, however, if they were to publish a story as "Conan and the Tower of the Elephant, that would be a copyright infringement because Cabinet owns the intellectual property of the Conan character.

Steve: Perilous Worlds is a new imprint of Cabinet Entertainment that publishes new Science Fiction and Fantasy titles set in the IP worlds of REH and others.

Comic Books
Jay:
 Comic Book rights were held by Marvel from 1970-2000 and then Dark Horse from 2000-2018, and now the rights are back at Marvel.  Whatever new Conan stuff that Marvel invents, Cabinet owns it. Including arms and armor, by Museum Replicas. We love to work with new creators and we very seldom take a license back from a licensee. 
  • Savage Avengers, had Conan teaming up with other Marvel characters to fight the bad guys from the Hyborian Age.  The preview was issued for Free Comic Book Day in 2019. 
  • The first issue of Dark Agnes was published in Feb, 2020, but the title got cancelled due to Covid.  They are now working on getting out more issues.
  • Solomon Kane comic three issues are still on hold due to Covid. 
  • Conan: Serpent War, four issue mini series about Conan , Solomon Kane, Dark Agnes, and others set in Howard’s House, published 2019-2020.
  • They Just made a deal with Titan books editor, Steve Saddle who was formerly an editor at Del Rey. The first Conan ebook will come out in spring 2022, the print edition will  come out later in the fall of 2022.  

Games:
Fred
was into war games as a kid. He brought role playing games to Sweden. His favorite game was Call of Cthulhu the tabletop game released in 1981.  Cabinet games must be kid friendly, appealing to existing fans, and not offensive to a 15 yr old girl, because gamers skew younger than the average Conan fan plus they skew female these days.  
  • Conan, a board game, was released in 2016. You can play as Conan, Valeria, Hadrathus, Shevatas, or Belit.  1-5 player game. 
  • Conan Exiles is a video game that was released in 2017 and has been adding new downloadable content ever since, expanding the world of the game. Your character starts naked chained to a tree and Conan rescues you.  So you get to pick the gender and race of your character and then design their look, including their skin color, hair color, and eye color. The male designers had made a slider so that you could change the breast size of the female characters.  The lone female designer saw that so she made  a slider option for changing the penis size of the male characters.  She said it was only fair. I found out when we got home from a friend (who owns the game and bought it for that very reason) that the penis slider option is not available in the games made for the US market due to censorship by the ESRB.
  • Serpent’s Bluff card game from the Marvel series, Gems of the Gambler. It’s the card game that Conan plays in the story.  A free print and play pdf was released in 2019,
  • Conan Chop Chop: a kids video games that looks a lot like the Lego games. for 1-4 players. It just came out earlier this year.
  • Conan the Cimmerian: Tower of the Elephant game  just came out this month after a successful Kickstarter campaign  It has 4 minis.  We got to see it first before they released it to the public. They brought several of them to donate to the museum's gift shop. We bought it but haven't played it yet.  See photos below.
  • Red Nails, 2nd prototype which is being beta tested.
  • Conan the Barbarian the movie game.  Straight to retail, they already have a designer. Audience is nostalgic 45 year old parent (dad)  playing with his kids. ​
Upcoming Films/TV Series
When directors want to direct a Conan movie but have only seen the movie and never read the books, but Cabinet wants any films to remain true to Howard's character, whereas producers want a huge audience so it gets tricky to appeal to all fan factions. For example the 2009 Solomon Kane movie spends half the time telling his origin story.

Cabinet is looking for a streaming service to do Legend of Conan, set in the years after Conan stops being King. Universal was looking at it but the studio head left for another job.  Had to wait three years for the option to expire. 

Cabinet asked Evan Daugherty, a native Texan, screenwriter, and huge Howard fan to write a new Conan film.  He almost cried and accepted the job immediately. He wrote a fantastic pilot which sat at Sony for three years. The film never got made, the option expired, and Cabinet bought it back from Sony one month ago.  Cabinet is now looking for another network to buy it.  Fred described it as Indian Jones meets Laurence of Arabia. 

 In 2018, Amazon commissioned a script from Ryan Condal and got Miguel Sapochnik to direct the pilot, he did GOT episode "Battle of the Bastards". Amazon bought LOTR series instead.  Cabinet can’t use that material because it was developed for Amazon, so no one will ever see the best Conan script ever written. 

In 2019 Netflix offered a deal to produce a live action Conan series, but Cabinet had to spend a year educating them on what Conan was and didn't close the deal until November 2020, It's in development now. The Netflix executives want it to be a franchise.

Red Sonja rights have been tied up at Millennium for a long time due to Bryan Singer's sexual assault allegations.  However, Millennium has finally announced that a new director, Joey Soloway, has been attached to the picture with Hannah John-Kamen starring as Red Sonja. The film has Gail Simone on board as a story consultant.  Simone re-launched the character when she authored 18 issues of Red Sonja for Dynamite Entertainment in 2013.

Dann Thomas

Dann Thomas, wife of Roy Thomas, is the first woman who was credited for writing on Wonder Woman, Issue #300 in 1983.  Before they were married, Roy wrote her into a Conan story  as the woman Danette who Conan meets in "What If Conan the Barbarian Walked the Earth Today?" published in What If? #13 (Feb. 1979). She also co-wrote with Roy for All Star Squadron in 1981 and Firebrand was named Danette Reilly for her. Roy credits her with creating the character Arak son of Thunder for DC, but she didn't get a writing credit till issue #12 in 1982. You can read all about her career here. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Dann_Thomas​
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Book Signing

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Poetry Reading

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Every year after the BBQ, REH's poem, "The Cimmerian" is read in multiple languages. I didn't get everyone's name, from right to left: Bill Cavalier (author and MC), Mark Finn (author) read in English, Patrice Louinet (author) read in French, Barbara Baum (author) is from Venezuela and read in Spanish, Mrs. Cavalier read in German,  the next man read in Italian, and the young man who is from New York read in Swedish. Each person read one stanza.  After the poem concluded, then it was open mic for anyone else who wanted to read something. We listened to a couple of other pieces but there was no shade in the front of the house and it was 102 degrees, so we went on back to the hotel.  Check out the guy in front in his Conan helmet.  That was the lone bit of cosplaying the entire weekend.  Props to him because his brain must have been roasting in there.

The Gravesite: Greenleaf Cemetary 

Although his home is in Cross Plains, the family was actually buried in Brownwood. The cemetery is easy to find plus REH's grave is pinpointed on Google maps in case you didn't pick up the directions at the gift shop.  The headstone is in almost the exact middle of cemetery  and with the addition of the historical marker and the permanent shade structure, you really can't miss it. We were not surprised to see that people had left offerings on the grave: Shiner beer, candles, and a novel.  On the front of the stone, someone left a tiny cross made of tinfoil.
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The Whole Wide World, 1996

Novalyne Price met REH while she was teaching at Cross Plains High School.  She was introduced to him by a mutual friend. Novalyne pursued a friendship with Bob because he was getting his stories published and although she wanted to be a writer, she hadn't had much success in that area yet. They were close friends/romantically involved the last three years of his life.  She wrote the two memoirs that the film is based on.  She is buried in Clear Creek Cemetery in Bangs, TX, not far from Brownwood, alongside her husband William Ellis.
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If you read the trivia on the IMDB and Wikipedia pages, you'll find out that the movie was made in my hometown of Bastrop, and surrounding areas of Rockne, Bartlett, and Austin. The Howard home in the film is in Bastrop  at 1310 Hill Street, as is the 1832 Tavern, at 809 Main Street, where Novalyne and Bob go to get a drink.
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Harry Potter Cosplay

1/1/2021

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We have wanted to do a Harry Potter cosplay for a long time now.  I even went so far as to order three sets of Gryffindor robes for the kids two years ago.  Rob and I were going to be Snape and McGonagall or Hagrid and Professor Trelawny, but it just never manifested.  Halloween 2019 was difficult with the death of Rob's dad.  I didn't make anything for anyone.  We pulled out the Gryffindor robes at the last minute for Sarah so she could go trick or treating and found out that the Small we ordered was entirely too small and wouldn't fit her anymore.  She wore one of the Larges that we bought the boys and we gave the Small one away. 

When we chose Puffs for our second slot, I donated the Gryffindor robes to the cause of the show. While watching the show, which was super cute and fun, it occurred to me that we could do a HP photoshoot and send it out for Christmas cards.  The first idea was a Slytherin family photo with Rob as Voldemort, me as Bellatrix, Sarah as Malfoy, Sylvan as Crabbe, and Seth as Goyle. The school uniforms fit the kids perfectly, which was a lucky coincidence with the casting. Voldemort's robes were one size fits all.  The only thing I had to do was come up with a new Bellatrix costume since I'm twice as big as the actress who played that character in Puffs. I chose a black corset, a long sleeved net shirt, and a ruffled black skirt with a cape.

Production Process

Then I had another idea: do all the Hogwarts ghosts.  Nearly Headless Nick. Fat Friar, and Moaning Myrtle were all parodied in Puffs, so I already had those costumes, built by the fabulous Matt Smith for the show, and again the sizing was a lucky coincidence.  I had to make a Bloody Baron and a Grey Lady costume.  I ordered the fabric from Fabric.com and it arrived in a week. I made a Restoration Justacorp for The Baron with slops, that he wore with a pre-existing doublet that I made for Three Musketeers. For The Grey Lady, I used a pre-existing skirt from Beaux Stratagem and matching bodice that I made for Christmas Carol.  I had to remove the sleeves and create new ones to bring it into the correct period.  I added an overskirt and some more trim.

At some point, I bought an awesome tiara at a Skellington Market.  I really wanted to make something to go with it.  That's when I had the idea to do all the Founders' Objects in our Ghost photo.  Rob already had a sword, I used the silver cup from the show, my tiara was Rowena's diadem, my grandmother's locket became Salazar's, and for Moaning Myrtle, an old patterning book stood in for Tom Riddle's diary.  All I needed now was a photographer.  Of couse I asked my friend Krista Kasper to do the honors.  She did Seth's senior pictures and really did an amazing job on them.  I asked her before Thanksgiving when I was still putting together all the costumes, wigs, and props.  We set up a date, I did the location scouting, and like a very busy bee, started patterning and sewing. In fact I was still sewing the morning of the photo shoot.

Getting Ready

The family showed up at 1:00 and it was a tight schedule to get everyone dressed with wigs and makeup in the Ghosts costumes.  We had to do those first because Rob had to shave afterwards to be Voldemort.  I really needed another hour to do a better job with the wigs and makeup, but as it was literally the shortest day of the year, hurrying had to happen or we would lose the light.

Photoshoot

 Krista took a ton of photos, which are really great.  The only problems were the girls' wigs weren't on very well and you can see our hairline in the close ups. Also, there's a reason I'm not an actress.  I don't take great photos, especially when I'm supposed to be cruel like Bellatrix or haughty like the Grey Lady.  However, all things considered, the photoshoot was a rousing success.  We celebrated with pizza and Christmas tv shows back at our house.

The CArds

Did I mention that Krista is also great wit Photoshop?  Check out the awesome Dark Mark and Hogwarts castle she gave us. She also managed to make Rob's arms white after I did his Voldemort makeup on his face and neglected to do his arms as well.  He also forgot to take off his Fitbit, so she got rid of that too.
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Halloween fun with You tubers

11/5/2020

3 Comments

 
I put this little playlist together while waiting for Tristan and Isolde to upload to you tube tonight.  It started at 3pm and still hasn't finished uploading and it's after 11 pm. But here's a bunch of fun Spooky Season historyical/vintage/cosplay/sewing videos. Enjoy!
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Squirrel Girl and Dr. Doom Reboot

10/18/2020

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https://www.mclennancostume.com/blog/squirrel-girl 

As you may recall two years ago I started these cosplays.  I finished mine but was never happy with the tail.  I got stuck on Dr. Doom's armor, because it got ruined when I tried to do all the spray painting when it was both too hot and too humid. The final straw was when I ruined the thermoplastic mask.  Luckily, all things eventually work out and I used the ruined Dr. Doom mask for Rob's Swamp Thing mask, for which it worked perfectly. You can click on the above link to read all about it.

Dr. Doom Process

Fast forward to the Pandemic. I tried making a pepakura mask of Dr. Doom because I found a pattern online.  I'd never done pepakura before and I ended up being very frustrated with the hundred tiny little pieces and got crazy glue all over my fingers. But it was good to figure out a pattern.  I cut the paper apart into just three pieces and then cut it out of foam. Rob used the dremmel and sanded it all down.
I took Darlisha's advice and had Rob sand all the old paint off of the armor pieces from two years ago.  I then repainted them in cooler weather.  Two coats of the hammered silver paint.  Then I went back in with flat black acrylic and did some antiquing. Once that dried, I did a clear coat of protective satin gloss.
I couldn't find the two shin pieces so I'm having to remake those with the new helmet. The shin pieces were easy to recreate.  The helmet gave me a lot of trouble. The foam I bought from Joanne's back in May was too thick, and didn't want to be heat formed nearly as well as the previous stuff. The pieces didn't fit together as well as I'd hoped either so there's quite of bit of hot glue showing on the face. It was really cold outside yesterday so I was doing the heat gun part inside the house and I was using a styrofoam head to form the EVA foam on top of.  And yes I was fully aware of how toxic styro is when melted.  However it didn't occur to me that I could melt styro that was underneath the foam.  I started smelling something so I picked up the top piece that I had been working on and underneath the head was all melted in on itself. YIKES!  I took the whole thing outside, put the styro head in the trash and then ran around opening all the doors and windows and googling inhaled poison info. We're fine.

I got the first coat of plastidip on at 6:00 and waited 30 minutes in between all the other coats of plastidip, grey primer, and hammered silver.  I brought the pieces in for the night at 9:30.  And yes, I did most of the painting in the dark under the porch light with a flashlight.  I had the brilliant idea to attach most of the pieces to each other with long brads but Office Depot closed at 7 and doesn't open again until 10 am today, so I'm doing the antiquing this morning and the clear coats before I send Rob out on that errand.

We started putting all the armor together at 11 and I worked on it till noon. We only got the upper body put together in time for the costume contest at Skellington.  That's OK because we won anyway.  There were only three entrants in the couples category, us, Sarah and Katryna, and another married couple who were Aragon type rangers.  They had bought their pieces from Pyramid Collection, I know because I get their catalogue and ordered that same belt for a show. Anyway, we won, and the girls came in second.


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Squirrel Girl 

 So, I gained 35 pounds during the pandemic, so none of my Squirrel Girl costume pieces still fit, except the jacket.  Also, I found new boots that are better than the ones I had last time.  I ordered new things from Amazon because I just didn't have time to build things from scratch.  I bought grey leggings brown shorts, a brown corset, a new better looking wig, and a much smaller and lighter squirrel tail.

The shorts are really long, so I cut them down to a 1" inseam and then sewed fur trim around the hem. I washed the fur trim to make it match the fur around my jacket and the boots.
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Halloween Cosplay

10/11/2020

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Sarah and her friend Katryna are planning a couples cosplay for Halloween this year. Since all the cons and Renfaires got cancelled this year I'm indulging their every wish.

Katara from Avatar

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Sarah wants to be this character from Avatar: The Last Airbender with her friend Katryna. Here's what I bought from Amazon in the gallery below.
​Total cost: $115.85
Everything fit except the skirt was about 3" too big in the waist. I'm going to remove the waist band and then take off about 5" from the top to shorten the length without sacrificing the fullness at the hem. Then I have to make the three tabs that hang down from the waist and do the trim on the skirt. The sew it all back together with a smaller waistband. Also I have to make the red choker for the pendant to be sewn on. And she wants me to dye her hair brown.

I made the tabs on Thursday and bought some brown satin blanket binding for the trim.  I got that sewn on Friday and then did the skirt trim out of bias binding I made from a darker brown fabric.  I reused the old waistband that I'd cut off, cut it down three inches and gathered the skirt and put the waistband back on.  I did a fitting Friday night and will attach the tabs Saturday.  I also made her a belt out of an old brown strap that was missing its buckle and the new alligator buckle I wasn't using for Sylvan's costume.


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Korra

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Katryna wants to be this character from the spin-off show. Here's everthing I bought from Amazon in the gallery below.
Total cost: $84.81
Everything fit very well except the pants were about 3" to big in the waist.  I'm going to dye the shirt a darker blue and make the brown fur thing around her waist. Also we need to cut the fingers off of the gloves. So when I dyed the shirt, it came out great, but two of the metal frog closures came off and a third was about to come off.  I resewed  the loose one, then reattached one of them but when I turned around to get the other one it had disappeared.  I looked for an hour and still couldn't find  it so I gave up and ordered more in silver which will match her belt.  so now I'm going to have to remove all 5 of them and then sew the new ones on. The silver ones showed up Friday night.  I had bought some white piping and silver elastic Friday morning and sewed that on too, and Friday night I sewed the silver frogs on.  It is all done and looks great.
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Plague Knight from Shovel Knight

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 Sylvan wants to be this character from his favorite video game, Shovel Knight. I bought everything from Amazon in the gallery below.
 Total cost: $170.63
The shirt, pants, and robe fit perfectly and didn't need to be altered at all.  After the first fitting I realized that he needed a hood to cover his head so that we couldn't see any bare skin.

Most of the accessories were the wrong color. I had to paint the plague doctor mask green as well as the belt and the pauldrons so that they would match the gloves. I used green Kryolan spray paint for plastic and did two coats. Once all the items were dry, I used black acrylic paint to add more dimension by painting in the areas that would be shadowed like the cracks in the belt (it's an alligator texture) and the edges of the paldrons, and around the eyes and beak of the mask. Then used gold acrylic to sponge over the green. With the beak of the mask I brushed the gold on fairly heavily.

I didn't like the matching black buckle on the belt, so I bought a gold buckle that I like better.  The belt is a ratchet belt, so the buckle was easy to replace. 

The pauldron straps were not long enough, so I'm going to have to replace them with longer black elastic. 
​In the end I ordered two more belts that had gold buckles but were really just black elastic and used those for straps. I'm also attaching velcro with E6000 to the inside of the pauldrons and sewing velcro to the robe so that they will stay in place better on his shoulders.

Then I had to paint the staff black. I did two coats of black acyrlic and then two coats of Kryolan black gloss spray paint and a final two coats of clear to protect the paint job. 

We're making the bomb out of a water bottle and adding a crazy stray inside for the fuse. I'm going to use RIT dye to tint the plastic bottle.  The bottom half needs to be green and the top half needs to be purple. Plus he needs a purple pouch to add to his belt, so I'm getting him a Crown Royal bag that will do the trick. He'll wear his combat boots for shoes.

I tried dyeing the plastic bottles Friday with Rit synthetic dye but it just wasn't working so today I'm going to paint the inside of the bottles with mod podge and food coloring. I glued snaps to the inside of the new belt buckles and the outside of the pauldrons to attach it.
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Wonder.Land, 2016

5/21/2020

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Directed by Rufus Norris
Set Designed by Rae Smith
Costumes Designed by Katrina Lindsey
​Projections by 59 Productions

Plot Summary

Obviously this production was based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.  It has been quite cleverly adapted into a musical in which Wonderland is a video game.  Ally, the black, female, teenaged  heroine, is the child of recently divorced parents who has had to move with her mom to a new flat, in a new neighborhood, go to a new school, and make new friends, and it's not going well.  She misses her dad, who has an online gambling addiction and lost all the family's money. Ally is being bullied at school, and doesn't want to leave her room or talk to her mum about her problems.  She wants to be anyone other than herself.  Her phone is her only friend.  She searches the internet for "be someone else" and finds Wonder.land where there are no rules other than "No Malice" toward yourself or anyone else.  She creates her avatar Alice to be completely different--a white girl with blonde hair--who's everything she's not: smart, pretty, thin, and brave.  She plays in Quest Mode and encounters others' avatars that she befriends: Dee and Dum, Humpty, Mock Turtle, Dodo, Caterpillar, and Mouse, each person having his/her own set of problems with their parents.  The gang discovers each other's weaknesses and insecurities and accept each other regardless of their lack of self esteem.  They have leveled up and go on to the garden.  Ally's teacher takes up Ally's phone because she's playing Wonder.land in class.  Ally doesn't lock her screen, and Mrs. Manxsome starts playing as Alice.  She changes Alices' hair and clothes (to red), buys in-game accessories, and proceeds to conquer the online world as The Red Queen. Ally discovers Mrs. Manxsome has her phone and sneaks into the school to try and steal it back. Meanwhile, Red Alice alienates all her friends, and starts beheading them.  Alice is going to be deleted from the game for breaking the one rule: No Malice.   Ally pleads with the game to save her avatar Alice, since it wasn't her fault, to no avail.  Alice apologizes to her friends before she disappears. Ally learns to be happy in the real world with her family and spends less time online.

Production Gallery

Photo Credit: Brinkoff and Mogenburg, National Theatre

 The set was amazing.  The National stage has a revolve but it wasn't utilized. Instead, all the set pieces and furniture were on wheels and either rolled by remote control or by actors wheeling things around.  Most of the set was done by projections, which is getting more and more popular these days.  It worked equally well for the video game animations as it did for the backgrounds of the real world.  The floor is painted with a Cheshire Cat image that gives a spirally, off kilter effect to all the scenes. These photos are of the "real world" of Ally's new neighborhood, flat, and school.  All of the actual set pieces were painted in grayscale, iwith the only color being in the costumes and the projections of Wonder.land.  As the show goes on the colors and characters of Wonder.land invade the grey of the real world more and more.  The whole video game aesthetic was heightened with the sound and lights making all the familiar beeps and boops and bings with the lights adding to the pixelated quality of things on the screen.
This is the sequence of Ally making her avatar, Alice, which she wants to be completely different from herself.  The whole time, the narrator's chair is running around Ally's bed like it's a remote controlled car, doing complicated circles and spins.

Costume Gallery

Photo Credit: Brinkhoff and Mogenburg, National Theatre

Katrina Lindsay's costume design sketches
As I said before, all the real world costumes are in greyscale. Ally and her friends were black and white school uniforms with exaggerated stripes and piping accenting the collar and lapels. Alice's costume is quite ingenious.  Her skirt is an enlarged Elizabethan ruff, which gives it a tutu like effect.  She's wearing ruffled lacy bloomers underneath, and the blue bodice is cut like a Tudor bodice worn over a chemise with puffed sleeves.   In an interview with Vogue, designer Katrina Lindsay points out the English fashion designers whose collections inspired her design of the costumes--Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Burberry Prorsum, and Christopher Raeburn.  When Alice becomes the Red Queen, she gets the same costume, just in red leather.  The Caterpillar is played by one actor and six chorus members, all of whom are individually costumed in a large oval shape to represent each segment of the caterpillar body, so each segment can spin and dance independently of each other.  Dee and Dum are also in an overlarge dryer hose like silhouette using black and gold in opposite locations. Alice's teacher, Mrs. Manxsome, looks a lot like Cruella DeVille in her black and white houndstooth suit, that later on opens to reveal red lining and a red dress underneath.  The Mock Turtle was so unhappy with her avatar, that she "trashed" it and appears wearing the trash can a la Oscar the Grouch.  The Doormouse is giant and flat in a sad Spongebob Squarepants way. Humpty is in schoolboy clothes with shorts and long socks holding a giant white balloon that represents her head.  The White Rabbit is in all white with giant cylindrical ears (that look more like tampons than ears honestly) and a fencing mask type helmet for a face.  He wears black and white two tone oxfords and jodpur inspired pants to create the bunny haunches and a tiny Elizabethan ruff for a collar.
My overall impression is, Wow look at all that awesome tech and design!  And then, I didn't really like any of the music.  Meh.  Would I watch it again? Probably not.  I'd rather just look at photos.  I already live in a house where there are video games going all the time and I'm just not into the whole scene.  It's a great adaptation and a great message and would certainly be more meaningful to kids who do stay online all the time to escape the real world, but to this Gen Xer, it's just too much sensory overload.
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Dara, 2015

5/13/2020

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Written by Shahid Nadeem
Adapted by Tanya Ronder
Scenery and Costumes by Katrina Lindsay ​

Trailer

Plot Summary

Taken from The National Theatre's Learning Guide to Dara:

​"The play's action begins in 1659, in Mughal India. The imperial court is a place of opulence and excess, with music, drugs, eunuchs and harems. Two brothers, Dara and Aurangzeb, whose mother’s death inspired the Taj Mahal, are heirs to this Muslim empire. Now they fight ferociously for succession. Dara, the crown prince, has the love of the people, and of his emperor father; but the younger Aurangzeb holds a different vision for India’s future. Islam inspires poetry in Dara, puritanical rigour in Aurangzeb. Can Jahanara, their beloved sister, assuage Aurangzeb’s resolve to seize the Peacock Throne and purge the empire?
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In an author's note in the published script, Ronder writes: 'My brief was to take Shahid Nadeem’s play and adapt it for a National Theatre audience. We set out, myself and director Nadia Fall, to unpack the events cited in the original play, to educate ourselves, and to recreate the story in a way that didn’t put our audience at arm’s length, able to write the drama off as a story that was not theirs. The tale of Dara and Aurangzeb is one which a Pakistani or an Indian audience would have preexisting knowledge and some ownership of. A story, albeit differently told across borders, which children all over the Indian subcontinent will have heard at school or at home, (perhaps akin to our connection in Britain to Henry VIII or Elizabeth I), but that very few of us in the West know about. ... The result is a more recognisable shape of play; it has expanded to five acts, it starts before the original begins and ends several decades later. I have added in a trial scene to give Dara the voice I think we need to hear, and added various characters and storylines, all taken from or inspired by historical facts – Itbar and Afia, Murad, Mian Mir, Hira Bai and Aurangzeb’s relationship with her – and also incorporated a childhood for the brothers and sisters of this Mughal court. All in an attempt to round the story out, to make it a fairer fight between the brothers and to hopefully give our audience the psychological and emotional complexity they are used to.'"

Katrina Lindsay, Designer

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Katrina Lindsay has designed scenery and costumes at the National Theatre for Small Island, Dara, Wonder.land as well as Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, for which she won a Tony.

Production gallery

Photo credit:  Ellie Kurttz and National Theatre

The beauty of the set is its openness and the cleverness of using the decorative screens to transition between scenes while also changing time and place.  The steps provide levels while the lighting and gobos provide patterns on the floor.  Musicians are kept both on stage and on the balcony above stage left.

costume Gallery

Photo credit:  Ellie Kurttz and National Theatre

The costumes are opulent, saturated, and many layered.  The fabrics are both rich and delicate with embroidered and bejeweled details.

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Powerhouse Acting

5/6/2020

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As I am continuing to work my way through the National Theatre Live archive, I've discovered that not all their offerings are to my taste.  I know, it surprised me too. Also, there are many productions where the acting/directing are superb, but the design isn't much to write about.  Not that it's bad, just that it takes a huge backseat to the performances.  I've watched 15 of the 30 so far and I am realizing that I'm not going to be blogging about all of them. So here's a short summation of what you won't be hearing about and why.

Devised Productions at the Old Vic

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Jane Eyre
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Peter Pan
Jan Eyre and Peter Pan were "devised productions" directed by Sally Cookson and staged at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.  They are experimental pieces that use the same acting company with minimal set and costume pieces.  I didn't like these productions for the odd staging, but especially for the low tech approach, especially when the work you are adapting is a period or fantasy piece, there should be spectacle.  And honestly, Jane Eyre was waaay too serious and Peter Pan was waaay too silly for me. Also, the actor playing Peter Pan looks to be a man in his mid to late 50's and is costumed like Rik Mayal in Drop Dead Fred, which just makes the whole thing really creepy to me, even with the actress playing Wendy looking to be in her mid to late 30's.  She's the same actress who plays Jane Eyre, so again with the age problem of being entirely too old for the character.  Reading the reviews, the critics loved it, but I couldn't get past the whole panto-esque quality to it.  Perhaps it's just that I'm American and don't understand English Panto.

Tennessee Williams at the Young Vic

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
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Streetcar Named Desire
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire were both staged at the Young Vic and directed by Benedict Andrews.

The first problem with both productions is the modernization.  There are no streetcars or tin roofs in this modern world.  The longing for the genteel Southern way of life that is slipping away in the world of the play doesn't translate when the time of the play is the twenty-first century and that way of life is no longer slipping away, it's dead and buried. Also,
I just think the English performers don't understand the Southern US aesthetic of cotton plantations, college football, and former beauty queens or they would realize that modernizing these plays doesn't work. And although UK training is famous for voice work, to someone who was born and raised in the South, their accents were not convincing, especially the men.   Also, both Paul Newman and Marlon Brando are manly men, and although they cast well-muscled men in those roles, no amount of tattoos will turn you into Stanley or Brick.  It's an attitude, a confidence, an arrogance that maybe just doesn't translate to English men.  I don't know. 

Specifically, I love Gillian Anderson, so I hate to say this about her acting, but her Blanche DuBois' accent is the worst of the lot. And I know that Vivien Leigh was also English, but her voice work was perfection, maybe because she did
 Gone with the Wind first. Also, I love Colm Meaney, but he is sooo not Big Daddy. And Maggie the Cat is supposed to be a sex kitten--duh!-- that any heterosexual man could not resist.  The actress that plays Maggie in this production needs to eat a sandwich.  I know our current ideal of feminine beauty is basically a heroin junkie super model, but that doesn't work for this play.  I normally think British actors way out-class American actors, but in conclusion, I think these British actors should leave Tennessee Williams' to the Americans and Vivien Leigh.

Must See Performances

KIng Lear, 2011

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Directed by Michael Grandage
Scenery and Costumes by Christopher Oram
​Derek Jacobi as King Lear

King Lear was staged at the Donmar Warehouse.
This was not a modernized version per se, but was costumed in simple, dark robes on everyone, making it very difficult to tell the characters apart.  The scenery was just whitewashed walls and floor.  There were no other set pieces.  The best tech in the show is the storm in Act 3 scene 2. The thing that set Derek Jacobi's Lear apart from all other Lears, is that it was clear that Lear was suffering from dementia.  Now, maybe this is just my interpretation clouded by my mother's death from Fronto-temporal Dementia recently, but that's how I read it.  I suppose if I went back to 1988 and watched Jeffrey Dench (brother of Judi Dench) in our Aggie Player version of King Lear, I might feel the same way about his performance.

Jacobi's Lear was a man who after making one very stupid pronouncement, was suddenly changed in personality so much so that his children and oldest friends are surprised by it and don't understand that in this state he can't be reasoned with.  Once he leaves his palace and moves his retinue to his daughter's, his dementia only gets worse. He's strange and prone to angry fits, he's violent and childish, and he doesn't know himself or his servants anymore.  The most interesting choice for me was the "Storm" scene which he chose to whisper his speech as an inner monologue but was amplified and echoed through the sound system while the "storm" levels receded into the background and only "raged" while Jacobi paused in his speech, until both storm and speech rose to thunderous levels by the end. 

Antigone, 2012

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Adapted by Don Taylor
Directed by Polly Findlay

Scenery and Costume Designed by Soutra Gilmour
Jodie Whitaker as Antigone
Christopher Eccleston as Creon

​There was more to the design elements in this production than the other two, but still not much to speak of, compared to the acting.  Antigone was a modernized adaptation, turning the Trojan civil war to the Cold War.  Reading the rehearsal notes, I learned that the inspiration for the setting was Churchill's War room, which the cast got to go and visit for research.  The chorus no longer speaks in unison as in the original, but has become the essential workers in the war room, each with their own jobs and viewpoints.  That was perhaps the most impressive piece of the puzzle, the constant movement and stage business with all the chorus running around doing all their very important jobs and handling so many props.  Together with the lighting and sound, the buzz of the war room really came alive.

​​Jodie Whitaker vs Christopher Eccleston is the Doctor Who grudge match of the century and Jodie wins.  Also, kudos to Luke Newberry as Haemon, Creon's son.  You might remember Luke from the British TV show In the Flesh, where he played the lead, Kieren Walker, a rehabilitated zombie.

Hamlet, 2010

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Directed by Nicholas Hynter
​Scenery and Costuming by Vicki Mortimer
​Rory Kinnear (
Penny Dreadful) as Hamlet. 
After reading the rehearsal notes, I learned that the inspiration for the setting was a fictionalized former Soviet republic, specifically the Eastern European Christian ones, where the populace is subjected to routine surveillance, human rights are ignored, and freedoms are restricted, and the secret police make dissidents disappear. Basically, spying is standard procedure here.  It's a modern dress version with minimal scenery consisting of white walls that reconfigure to create different acting spaces.  However, with acting this good, you don't need tech at all.  Just lights to see by. That doesn't mean that more lavish period sets and costumes wouldn't have made it better. It would have.  Especially since in this version all the costumes were in the navy/black/grey range.  Having Hamlet still in mourning dress among courtiers who've had to transition to a wedding rather quickly and would have therefore worn colors, would have made Hamlet's "melancholy" stand out much more severely, as it should have done. But honestly, the tech isn't the reason I'm writing about this show, so the tiny criticisms I have are NOTHING compared to the acting genius that is Rory Kinnear.

I have seen many Hamlets and Rory Kinnear is the best one.  Fight me.  And as much as I love David Tennant in everything he does, Rory Kinnear's Hamlet is better.  He's better than all the "modern" Hamlets--Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh, David Tennant, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ethan Hawke--and he's also better than Olivier, there I said it.  If you don't believe me, watch it for yourself.  Even his ugly blue sweat pants and OD army shirt can not diminish the power of his passionate performance.

I had several thoughts while watching him, things that never occurred to me while watching any other Hamlet actor. First and foremost that he's "acting" like he's crazy and not actually crazy when he's with a character he decides he cannot trust and that is the "method in his madness".  So simple and yet so brilliant. You can see this especially in the scene where R&G show up unannounced.  At first he's glad to see them and is behaving appropriately, but as soon as he find out that they were sent for, he immediately distrusts them and starts "acting crazy".  No second chances, no explanations, he's just written them off as allies. Second, that he was actually in love with Ophelia until he decided he couldn't trust her so he pushes her away.  Third, that Horatio is with him all the way right up until Hamlet reveals that he has rewritten Claudius' edict, condemning R&G to death.  Horatio is horrified to find out that Hamlet would feel justified in punishing his friends with death for being Claudius' pawns. Fourth that Hamlet truly regrets both his treatment of Ophelia and his "accidental" murder of Polonius upon learning that it was entirely his actions that let to her suicide, and because of this, he is truly trying to reconcile with Laertes before the fencing match.

And fifth, the problematic scene with Gertrude that everyone else seems to want to make sexual or weird isn't problematic in Rory Kinnear's hands.  Part of the reason this works is because in this version, Claudius is played by an actor who looks weak and snively, rather than sexy, heroic Patrick Stewart or even sexier, younger Kyle MacLauchlin, or friendly grandpa Alan Bates or Derek Jacobi. The audience should be able to see the difference themselves in the two portraits that Hamlet shoves under Gertrude's nose.  Old Hamlet should be kingly and heroic and in comparison, Claudius should look weak and sinister.  Lion King is the only production that got this right.  So when Rory Kinnear was upset with his mother for marrying too quickly, we see that it's not only that it was too soon (everybody gets that part right) but that it also should have been obvious to her that Claudius' wooing of her was an outright power grab, that she was being used, and not only is she being unfaithful to her dead husband by neglecting her duties to be in mourning for at least a year, that she has been an idiot not to see through Claudius' motivation and allowed him to rob her own son of his succession to the throne.  And moreover, to Clare Higgins (Gertrude) who was the first actor that I believed finally saw the light and was in fact promising Hamlet that she would not sleep with Claudius again.  After Hamlet leaves her bedroom, we see Claudius go in for some neck nuzzling and Gertrude firmly pushes him away.
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Small Island, 2019

5/4/2020

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Based on the book by Andrea Levy
Adapted by Helen Edmundson
Directed by Rufus Norris
Scenery and Costumes by Katrina Lindsay
​Projections by Jon Driscoll
Music by Benjamin Kwasi Burrell

Small Island is a 2004 novel by British author Andrea Levy, that deals with the intersecting lives of four people after WW II. Hortense and Gilbert are Jamaican immigrants who came to England looking for a better life, but instead find racism and less economic opportunity than they were promised. They find lodgings with Queenie, a white middle class woman who doesn't mind that her lodgers are black. Her RAF husband, Bernard, is MIA since the war ended and she has to make ends meet any way she can.  When Bernard comes home unexpectedly to find Queenie pregnant, his racism makes all their lives impossible.

The author Andrea Levy died of liver cancer just a few months before this adaptation opened. ​I highly recommend watching this production while you still can.

Research

The cast of the show visited the Black Cultural Archives to learn more about the experience of Jamaicans that came over on the SS Windrush.
Alford Gardner, 93, talks about his experiences coming over on the SS Windrush.

Scenery Gallery

The design concept for the scenery seemed to be suggestive rather than literal. There was very little actual scenery: a table, some chairs, a bench, a bed, a counter, some windows that fly in, a staircase.  The real hero here was the projections, designed by Jon Driscoll, that made this show come to life.  The cyclorama had backgrounds for each scene rear-projected onto it. The backgrounds enhanced the scenery with mountains, the ocean, a hurricane, the SS Windrush, a shop, a factory, and some gorgeous sunsets.  At several points, it seemed like giant doors opened in the middle of the cyc for entrances and exits. When passengers were boarding the ship, we saw their shadows climbing the staircase and then actually disappearing into the ship.  I'm not sure how they did that, but it was a first class bit of theatre magic. Twice, a smaller sheet flew in to become a movie theatre screen that had movies projected onto it. In conjunction with the lighting and sound, the projections of island life and city life become sensually real, that is real to all the senses: the heat, the smell of the ocean breeze, the sound of the waves, the scent of the flowers, and the birdsong, contrast with the bustling London life: the cold and damp, the never-ending rain, the sounds and smells of traffic, congestion, people, smoke, bombed out buildings, poverty, racism.

Costume Gallery

This was a cast of 40 in which almost everyone plays more than one character and has many costume changes. The costumes were appropriately 1940's.  In Jamaica, the clothes were much more colorful, and of course, lighter for the heat.  The clothes in London were drabber, grayer, and warmer with more layers for the cold and damp.  Hortense and Queenie got more costumes than anyone else naturally.  Hortense began in a solid blue dress that she stayed in until she changed it for a white dress when she's made up her mind to get out of Jamaica any way she can.  For the trip, she added a hat, coat, and gloves.  Her costumes reinforce her determined nature and her respect for cleanliness and class, being a teacher. Queenie started off on the family pig farm in Lincolnshire, wearing a work dress complete with bloody apron.  She then moved to London to help her Aunt out in her shop, when she finally got to go shopping for new clothes.  She added a hat, coat and gloves for her dates with Bernard.  When he didn't come home from the war, she switched to a frumpy house dress to hide her pregnancy from everyone.  Queenie's costumes reflected her outgoing nature and her love of adventure and acceptance of the people around her. She took in strays of all kinds and cared for them equally. Of course there's RAF uniforms aplenty on Michael and his squadron, and Gilbert and his comrades. The costumes were beautiful to look at in their simple elegance and oh, so many of them to look at.  

Music

A 7 minute video about the composition of the music for the show, by Benjamin Kwasi Burrell.
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London Assurance, 2010

5/2/2020

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Directed by Nicholas Hytner
​Costumes and Scenery by Mark Thompson
All photos credit: National Theatre and Mark Thompson.
The first performance of Dion Boucicault's most well known play was in 1841 at Covent Garden. The plot involves an arrangement between Sir Harcourt, an old rich fop, and his best friend Squire Maxwell Harkaway.  Harkaway's daughter Grace must marry Harcourt  or lose her estate in the country.  Sir Harcourt is a vile, preening fool, and she quickly falls in love with his son, Charles instead.  The only problem is getting Sir Harcourt to lose interest in Grace, so Charles can get on with his courting. A willing neighbor, Lady Gay, is up for the challenge, so she throws herself at Harcourt and leads him on a merry chase.  Everyone and everything is made fun of along the way and by the end, the two young lovers are allowed to marry.

pRODUCTION Design

The crux of the play is the differences between town (London) and country (Gloucestershire). To show us the differences, Thompson designed two sets which rotate for four different looks for the five acts.  The first look was the exterior of Sir Harcourt Courtly's home, it rotates to reveal the interior. The second set was the exterior of Squire Max Harkaway's home which also rotates to reveal the interior.  The Olivier's revolve made easy work of the set changes. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a photo of Sir Harcourt's interior.  If you look at the costume photo of Sir Harcourt in his dressing gown, he is in the interior of his home in that costume.
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Set model of exterior of Sir Harcourt's home in London.
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Set model of exterior of Squire Harkaway's home, Oak Hall, in the country.
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Set model of interior of Squire Harkaway's home.

Costume Design

You may know Mark Thompson's costume designs from The Madness of King George. He was nominated for a Tony for his costumes for Arcadia in 1995.  And most recently, he designed costumes and scenery for One Man, Two Guvnors.

The time period of the costumes seems to be 1820's and squarely in the Romantic period.  Mark Addy (The Full Monty and Game of Thrones' Robert Baratheon) plays Squire Max, Fiona Shaw (Petunia Dursley from the Harry Potter movies) plays Lady Gay and Simon Russell Beale (Mr. Lyle in Penny Dreadful).  Beale's performance as Sir Harcourt is both the most delightful and astonishing thing in the play.  As a man of considerable size and weight, he prances across the stage with the skill of a Baryshnikov. He gets the most costume changes of all the other actors and he wears his costumes with the confidence of Lord Byron.  His over the top farce is equally matched by Fiona Shaw's performance as Lady Gay.  No dainty, shrinking violet, she.  She drinks like fish, swears like a sailor, and smokes cigars with relish. Her brashness cuts through all of Harcourt's lyrical advances.   She gets the next most costume changes, three, and wears them like a general inspecting his troops. These two are the reason to watch this performance.

Costume Sketches

Costume Gallery

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She Stoops to Conquer, 2012

4/26/2020

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Directed by Jamie Lloyd
​Costumes and Scenery by Mark Thompson
She Stoops to Conquer, by Oliver Goldsmith, is a Restoration comedy.  I've only ever designed this play as a project in grad school, but I would love to do it for real.  The only Restoration comedy I've designed for MCC so far has been Beaux Stratagem.  If you're not familiar with the plot, the story revolves around Mr. Hardcastle trying to get his daughter Kate married off to his friend's son, Mr. Marlow.  Mr. Marlow is exceedingly shy and awkward around upper class "ladies", but exceedingly talkative and flirty with lower class "tarts".  Kate tricks Marlow into thinking she's a house maid in order to get on with the courtship.  Only once he's ensnared by her charming banter and good looks, is the trick revealed.  There's two subplots involving Kate and Marlow's best friends, Constance and Hastings, who are also in love but do not have permission to marry, and Kate's step-brother, Tony Lumpkin, who wants his inheritance so he can spend it at the pub and date the buxom tavern wench Bet Bouncer, rather than marry Constance to keep her inheritance in the family like his mother Mrs. Hardcastle (the widow of Mr. Lumpkin) wants him to do.  Of course everything works out and the three couples end up together, after five acts of scheming, sneaking, and running away, not to mention a jewel heist.

Production Gallery

All photos credit: National Theatre and Marc Brenner.

The scenery changes for each act with the major advantage of having a revolve in the Olivier stage.
Act 1, 3, and 5 are set in the drawing room of the Hardcastle's home, Liberty Hall. There are comfy arm chairs and a roaring fire.  It's exactly how I pictured the Gryffindor common room of the Harry Potter series would look like. Act 2 takes place in the Three Pigeons Tavern where Tony Lumpkin hangs out with his drunken friends and Bet Bouncer.  Act 4 is in the grounds outside the Hardcastle's home near the horse pond.  Mrs. Hardcastle falls into the horse pond and enters stage wet, muddy, and looking like she tramped through a swamp to get there.

The costumes are all appropriately mid-18th Century. Kate is kept in pink, while Constance is kept in yellow.  Marlow is also in yellow, while Hastings is in blue and pink.  Tony and his mother are both kept in green, while Mr. Hardcastle is in dark browns tending toward the burgundy in Act I, then changes his dressing gown and cap, for his powdered wig and green frock coat in Act 3.  Mr. Hardcastle dresses a bit plainer than the young lovers, while Mrs. Hardcastle is more extravagant.  Tony Lumpkin's clothes are shabby and rough, like they've had a few too many, survived a bar fight, then were slept in for a few days afterwards.  Indeed, at one point, he sloshes a mug of ale all down his shirt front.  He's a mess.  The aristocrats are obviously more colorful and fashionable than the servants.  The servants costumes tend toward the earth color spectrum, while at the same time being faded and of plainer fabrics.  Every character has only one costume with the exception of Kate, who changes into her plainer dress as her maid disguise, complete with white mob cap and apron.  The only problem I had with that costume was the very large zig zag print on the fabric.  It felt a little too modern and stood out from the rest of the fabrics that were used in the show.
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Treasure Island, 2015

4/26/2020

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Adapted by Byrony Lavery
Directed by Polly Findlay
​Scenery and Costumes by Lizzie Clachan
Clicking on the link will take you to her website.
MCC also produced this play (different adaptation) back in 2007.  It's a challenging show for the scenic designer what with having to build a ship onstage.  We did it outside at the Bosque River Stage, which gave it the benefit of having water in the background.  As our Waco springs usually bring a lot of rain and sometimes flooding, this year the Bosque had flooded a lot so that the first six rows of seats were underwater and had washed away the beginnings of the set we had previously been working so hard to build.  After a delay of a couple of weeks for the water to recede, we were able to rebuild the set fortunately.  Unfortunately, the receding waters left behind an amazing amount of dead fish.  So, the stage absorbed the stench of an 18th C pier.  We told ourselves it added to the verisimilitude.
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Robert Louis Stevenson famously said Treasure Island was a book for boys. In this female led production, (both the adapter and the director are female) the creatives were aware that there were in actuality many female pirates and that they were infamous for being more sadistic than the men.  Their research led them to re-imagine the roles of Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesay, and several of the sailors/pirates, as female.  We find out Jim's given name is Jemima early on.  In fact, Jim's gender is remarked upon often by everyone she meets, but it makes little difference to the plot. Patsy Ferran, a Spanish actress raised in England, plays Jim.  She is an amazing talent.  She had just graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art when she was cast.

Another unusual casting choice is Arthur Darvill (Rory from Doctor Who) as Long John Silver.  Not that he didn't do an excellent job as LJS, but "Rory" is seemingly too young and pretty to be a scary pirate. Indeed, even with the missing leg, grimy clothes, and dirty, bearded face, he still manages to be a sexy bad boy.  Clearly this is what the director was going for, it's just LJS is normally a big bear of a man and not a Johnny Depp-esque Captain Jack Sparrow.

The acting (and singing) is excellent.  It's a stunningly good ensemble show, but the real star of the production is design/tech of the ship, The Hispaniola, the storm it sails through, and the stars that guide it.  I have included several videos where you can see the raising of the ship out of the stage floor, the lighting and sound effects of the storm, and the lighting for the astronomy lesson.

The costumes are wonderful as well.  As with any ensemble show, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  All the pirates and sailors are costumed in motley of colorful, tattered garments that combine like pieces in a patchwork quilt to create a most interesting and unusual design.

Production Gallery

All photos credit: National Theatre and Marc Brenner.
Here's a video of the stage transforming into the Hispaniola: all three stories of it.
Here's a clip of the awesome storm sound and lighting effects.
Here's a clip of the awesome lighting effects in the astronomy lesson.
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One Man, Two Guvnors, 2011

4/26/2020

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Directed by Nicholas Hynter
​Scenery and Costumes designed by Mark Thompson
All photos credit: The National Theatre and Marc Brenner.

​One Man, Two Guvnors, by Richard Bean, is an adaptation of the Italian commedia play Servant of Two Masters by Goldoni.  MCC just did that show to open our season in the fall of 2019.  I had never seen or read this adaptation before so I was really excited to see a production of it.  All I knew about it before I saw it, is that it stars James Corden as the Truffaldino character and is set in the early 1960's in England. Here's a plot summary from the National Theatre's website:

Fired from his skiffle band, Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe, a small time East End hood, now in Brighton to collect £6,000 from his fiancée’s dad. But Roscoe is really his sister Rachel posing as her own dead brother, who’s been killed by her boyfriend Stanley Stubbers. Holed up at The Cricketers’ Arms, the permanently ravenous Francis spots the chance of an extra meal ticket and takes a second job with one Stanley Stubbers, who is hiding from the police and waiting to be re-united with Rachel. To prevent discovery, Francis must keep his two guvnors apart. Simple.

Here's the Official Trailer:

Production Design

Act I takes place in the home of Charlie "the Duck" Clench and his daughter Paulina-- the Pantalone and Clarice characters in the original version--where we are introduced to all the characters.  It's mostly a one costume per character kind of show. Clench is wearing a dark pinstripe suit, Pauline is wearing a pink floral late 1950's dress with a net petticoat and white heels.  Her hair is worn in a bouffant.  Her fiance, Alan Dangle (the Silvio character) wears all black (he's an actor) with hair that's too long, black leather jacket, black ribbed turtle neck, black chinos and black Beetle boots.  Alan's dad, Harry Dangle (Doctor Lombardi), is also wearing a pin-stripe suit (he's a criminal defense lawyer for the Mafia) but looking much more like Uncle Vernon Dursley than anything else.  Clarice's maid, Smeraldina, in this play is Dolly, Clench's secretary/accountant.  She knows where all the money is and where all the bodies are buried.  Dolly is sporting a ginger beehive hairdo, a tight tweed skirt, and sweater set.  Francis (Trufaldino) shows up to put a stop to the engagement party with his first guvnor, Roscoe Crabbe, the small time East End hood. But of course it's really Rachel his sister, in disguise.  Rachel is of course the Beatrice character whose brother was killed by her boyfriend, Florindo, or in this version, Stanley.  "Roscoe" is wearing another dark pin striped suit with a hat.  Francis is wearing a three piece suit in brown plaid with a vest that's a bit too short and pants that are hemmed a bit too high for fashion.

Act II moves to the street in front of Lloyd Boateng's inn, The Cricketers' Arms.  Lloyd is the Brighella character.  Lloyd is a Jamaican national and is the only character who changes costumes every time we see him.  We meet Stanley too, who is staying there. Stanley is wearing a blue blazer and a tie.  

Act III goes inside the Cricketers' Arms for the hilarious dinner scene. Gareth and Alfie are the waiters who are helping Francis keep his two guvnors in food.  Alfie is particularly good, performing perfect pratfalls and other physical gags.  The slapstick has been traded for a cricket bat in this scene, and Alfie gets hit with it several times, as well as falling down the stairs.  

Act IV is back out on the street, but we've moved closer to the end of it where the pier is, for the climactic lovers' suicide attempts and discovery of their true identities. We see Stanley jump of the pier into the water before Rachel can get there.  While Rachel is contemplating jumping, Stanley miraculously appears on the pier soaking wet.  The reunion is particularly silly and ends with them stripping out of their wet clothes and embracing with their pants down, revealing two pairs of white boxers, black socks and sock garters.  Lloyd shows up to tell them to get a room.

​Act V is back to the Clench's house for the happy resolution of all three couples.  At this point, "Roscoe" has shed his suit to become Rachel in a dress. All of the scene changes are covered by Charlie's old skiffle band performing original songs with various members of the cast.  The music was written and performed by a real-life skiffle band, Grant Olding and The Craze.

Production Gallery

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Twelfth Night, 2017

4/25/2020

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Directed by Simon Godwin
​Costumes and Scenery by Soutra Gilmour
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If you click on the link it will take you to her website.

All Photos Credit: Marc Brenner for The National Theatre and S​outra Gilmour.

Scenic Design

Twelfth Night is a favorite of mine.  I've done it twice before--once at UTEP back in the early 1990's when I was a student and was the wardrobe mistress, dresser, and hair stylist.  And again last spring for MCC.  Both times we did it with period appropriate costumes.  My favorite production that I've seen was Texas Shakespeare Festival's in 2015.  It was set in a later period (1810's) and had the most wonderful original music. The National Theatre's version is set in the present day and it does not disappoint.

Soutra Gilmour designed both scenery and costumes (as is so often done in the UK) for this production.  The set steals the show as it usually does in the Olivier space due to its stage that both revolves and is on a corkscrew lift that enables the scenery to both appear from and disappear into the floor.  This set doesn't take advantage of the lift, but makes excellent use of the revolve.  The set is a huge step pyramid (with functional stairs where many scenes are played) that provides four different playing spaces and the surprise element of opening and closing like pages of a book which provides another two playing spaces after intermission. On one side is the interior of Olivia's house, the opposite side is the exterior of Orsino's.  As the set rotates around, we get the exterior of Olivia's house which becomes both a courtyard with a fountain, and a garden with a jacuzzi.  Orsino's exterior walls open up into the interior of The Elephant (the pub where Antonio is supposed to meet Sebastian). Olivia's exterior walls open up like windows into the interior of a church featuring a giant neon cross where Olivia marries Sebastian.


scenic gallery

Pictures credit: Marc Brenner for The National Theatre

D Radley-Bennett Vimeo of the Storyboard animation for the scenery.  It's amazing.  You must click on this link to see it in action.  Words fail to describe how awesome it is.

Costume Design

As with many of Shakespeare's comedies, a girl disguises herself as a boy so that she can function in society. This production took gendered roles to a whole new level with their casting choices.  The roles of Feste, Fabian,  and Malvolio were all played as women. Tamsin Greig playing Malvolia.  I loved her as Fran in Black Books. Terry Pratchett fans will remember her as the reporter Miss Crisplock Going Postal.  Neil Gaiman fans will remember her as Lamia in the Neverwhere mini-series.  She's a wonderful actress and is both perfectly pompous and pity-able as Malvolia.  Another interesting casting choice is that Viola and Sebastian were played by Actors of Color, adding a lovely diversity to the romances.   Another modernization included the street fight between Viola and Andrew where Antonio rescues her, was moved into The Elephant which was now a neon lit nightclub with a Drag Queen entertainer, singing the "To Be or Not to Be" speech from Hamlet as a torch song.  I laughed so hard I snorted!

Malvolio's yellow stocking with cross-garters is always good for a laugh, but Malvolia gets the BEST costume in the whole show and is possibly the best Malvolio costume in the world, because it's not just one costume, but THREE!  She comes out in a Periot sad clown costume over her yellow stockings and black cross garters and then strips that off to reveal a Playboy bunny-esque cone-boobed leotard with propellers on her nipples, covered by a skirt (unfortunately no photo of her wearing it in its second incarnation, although you can see where it's laying on the steps behind her in the second photo) and then strips off the skirt and turns on the propellers and they actually spin!  OMG this was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen! I'm so glad that the National Theatre decided this was clip-worthy!  

The next best costume was that of Andrew Aguecheek, who is dressed as a hipster with a man bun!  So funny.  Sir Toby is not padded out to be obese nor is he played by an already fat actor.  In this production he becomes more of a scummy Leisure Suit Larry-esque character with more of a 1960's Brat Pack vibe.  This is also the first time I've seen all of Olivia's ladies in waiting, as well as Maria all dressed in black.  It makes so much more sense to do it that way, so that the first scene where "Cesario" meets Olivia and doesn't know which is the lady of the house, actually seems plausible. 

The second time that Cesario visits Olivia to woo her, Olivia invites "him" back to her jacuzzi where Toby and company are having a pool party and everyone is in swim wear.  Olivia hands Cesario a beach towel and a tiny gold Speedo to put on (which never happens) and then ends up pulling "him" into the pool fully dressed.  Cesario is in a white men's shirt at the time which has now gone all see-thru in an unexpected and horrifyingly Wet T-shirt contest way.  "He" is then forced to face away from Olivia while she is desperately trying to woo "him". Eventually Cesario is forced to get out, grabbing the towel, and clutching it in front of "his" chest.

Costume Gallery

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Theatre in the Time of Corona

4/25/2020

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It's been a long time since my last blog.  Normally by now I'd have written about Dallas Fan Expo, the newly revived HOT Con, our last two shows: The Tinker of Tivoli and Silent Sky, Sherwood, and Scarborough Faire.  I'd be looking forward to writing about EGX (formerly Geekfest) and our annual trip to Kilgore for the Texas Shakespeare Festival. But here were are in the middle of a global pandemic and for the first time since the Spanish Flu of 1918, the theatres have closed.  It's our own modern day plague.  Any day I expect we'll have a ginormous fire that will burn most of London down, yes it's really that bad. 

So far I've had one former student catch it.  I don't know anyone else personally who has it, but even so, most of my theatre friends are out of work as are Rob's musician friends.  I have two nurse friends on the front lines dealing with Covid patients every single day.  Most of my sewing friends are making masks, which is great and I applaud them.  Sarah was at her grandma's and they made masks for the whole family.  Sarah broke five needles doing it, but hey! we have masks to wear to HEB.  The rest of school is worse than cancelled, it's still going on but all online, which means I'm teaching my students and homeschooling my three children at the same time. None of what I'm doing is great, but it's something. 

The only thing keeping me sane is theatre.  I'm going through Netflix series like Fig Newtons and Chai, which is rapidy.  I've finally gotten to watch all of last year's Oscar winners and am waiting for this year's winners to stream. Fortunately, there's been a huge outpouring of love from the theatre community and some theatres have been streaming their past shows.  TSF is streaming a new (old) play every Saturday through May and The National Theatre in London is streaming one every Thursday from now till May.  Even better, Bloomsbury has made all of its theatre offerings available as a free trial to colleges which includes all 30 of The National's productions.  Which means I have till May 31 to watch the 29 I hadn't seen yet.  We saw Frankenstein in the cinema for Rob's birthday two years ago.  So to keep myself from going crazy and to keep my mind sharp, I've decided to write blogs on the shows that I'm watching. 

Here's a list of upcoming National Theatre productions that I will blog about next week:
One Man, Two Guvners with James Corden
Treasure Island
Twelfth Night
with Tamsin Greig as Malvolio
She Stoops to Conquer

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Dracula at Theatre 3

10/27/2019

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Theatre 3 website
My friend and fellow Aggie Player Christie Vela, recently became Theatre 3's new Associate Artistic Director. For their first show of the season, a brand new adaptation of Dracula was created with her friend and fellow Terror and Tacos podcast host, Michael Federico.  They are also currently producing a horror film together entitled Final Dress.  If you are interested in checking out any of those things there are links below:
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Tacos and Terror podcast
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Michael Federico and Christie Vela on the set of Final Dress.
Final Dress film

My History with Dracula

My husband and I are huge fans of the novel.  My favorite interpretation is the Copolla film with Gary Oldman and costumes by Eiko.  My husband loves the original Universal picture with Bela Lugosi.  Between us we have seen dozens, maybe even a hundred interpretations on stage and film and even the bad, cheesy ones are enjoyable in their own way. In fact when I was in college, I was in a terrible adaptation of Dracula in which we simply didn't have enough men to cast all the roles, so our Van Helsing was a woman, Ginny Green.  Our director, Robert "Coach" Wenck welcomed the cheese so much so that the climactic staking of Dracula scene was underscored with "Chariots of Fire" music as everyone moved in slo-mo.  Our curtain call music was "Ghostbusters". Christie saw this version but swears that Van Helsing being a woman was entirely Michael's idea. So believe me when I tell you that the Theatre 3 version may be the best thing to have happened to Stoker's novel since it was first published.
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My college production of Dracula. I am center as Sybil Seward, Dr. Seward's spinster sister, an entirely made up character. Lucy wasn't even in this version.

Notes on the script and Casting

I saw Dracula on Saturday night and was completely blown away by the production. Vela and Federico's feminist adaptation focuses on Mina as having agency rather than being a helpless victim who needs to be saved from an evil monster by all the men in her life. Federico's dialogue makes reference to the many historical female vampires like Lilith and Lamashtu, to the new law allowing women to own property.  Lucy even asks if Mina is now a suffragette. In this version both Dracula and Van Helsing are played by women-- the sultry Allison Pistorius as Dracula and the sassy Gloria Vivica Benavides as Van Helsing.  Another interesting casting choice is that all three of Lucy's suitors--Dr. Seward, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey--are played by a single actor, Josh Bangle. ​​I'm including both the dramaturgical notes as well as the director's notes so you can read them for yourself.  All three photos are enlargeable so hopefully you can make them big enough on your device to read the tiny text.
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Dramaturgical Notes written by Dante Flores.