The Sound, The Furry

Two meetings today, first with Melissa for the costume pull. We sorted through the Walterdale's impressive collection of shirts, skirts, coats, pants, hats, sashes, ties, shoes, boots, belts, and unspecified fabrics in search of the perfect scheme. It's a good start--it looks like we found several dozen highly useable pieces--but there's still a ways to go. Melissa has already hauled back her initial design quite a bit, largely because time is short, and because she doesn't want to spend every waking moment between now and February sewing and making alterations for my massive cast.

Costumes is, I must confess, an ongoing source of stress for me. It's not Melissa, or Walterdale, or anything to do with this show--everyone's been great, and I know I'm in safe hands. It's just me; I'm useless when it comes to fabric and colour. Ask me to match two items and I'd get them wrong. Sit me down in front of a sewing machine and I'd find a way to reduce things to their original component fabrics. Costumes are an incredibly important aspect of theatre--they communicate so much visually, and the actors depend upon them to develop characters and to do their jobs freely and comfortably. I must put my faith in the hands of those who, unlike me, can thread a needle to save their lives.

My sound design meeting with Mark felt more evenly matched. Mark is picking ambient electronic samples to integrate with realistic storm sounds. Cool. We still need bona fide instrumental music for transitions and such, and I told him to investigate some of the Russian composers, particularly Tchiakovsky and Shostakovich, in search of music with a militaristic mood. Suggestions are welcome.

Deadlines approach. In a couple of weeks, these random, fluttering ideas will need to be pinned down to the ground and forced to work in line with all the other bits and pieces.