Nants ingonyama bagithi
The above title is Zulu for "Here comes the Lion," and is the first line of "Circle of Life," the opening song of Lion King.
Wow, what a show this is. I'd love to post pictures of these costumes and set pieces because they are Incredible, but Disney is very touchy about copywrites and I don't want to get sued. So, here's their official website with a couple of pictures.
http://www.disney.com.au/lionking/about_the_show/the_story.html
I started this show last week as a dresser - which is just what it sounds like, someone backstage who helps the actors in and out of their costumes. There are 16 dressers and probably 30-40 actors plus a whole rank of "swing" actors who are trained to fill in at a moment's notice if someone is sick or injured. More on that later.
Added to the people, there is a full sized Elephant puppet, a baby elephant puppet (one of the cutest things I've ever seen, her trunk is attached to her mama's tail!), two full sized giraffe puppets, about 15 hyenas, wildebeests, ostriches, fish, antelope, a pig, two cheetahs, several dozen birds, etc. etc. Backstage looks like a wild life zoo. Well, a wild life puppet zoo.
A quick run down of how this works, for those who don't know much about theatre. This show tours with a whole crew of people backstage to work with costumes, props, puppets and set pieces. However, in every city, they hire local people to fill in as dressers, props people and stage hands because the show is too big to function with just the touring crew. So I'm on this show as a local dresser for their 6 week show here in Tucson.
On stage are the actors. Principal actors are ones with bigger parts - like Simba and Mufasa, for those of you who have seen this musical or the animated movie - and the rest of the actors are called the male and female "ensemble" actors and they sing and dance and play all the rest of the parts. I'm a dresser for the ensemble actresses, which means I have 3 singers that I'm responsible for.
This show is really busy, and my girls change costumes about every 10-15 minutes, on average, for 2 hours and 45 minutes every night and twice on each weekend day. This means that we have a backstage area about 4 feet wide and about 6 feet long where 3 people change clothes - and puppets and shoes and hats and get their makeup done - AND it's also a walkway for anyone else trying to get past us and get on stage. So sometimes we have to stand up on the benches so that someone with a huge hyena puppet head can get past us to make their cue and get on stage. The cramped space was the first thing that took some getting used to.
The second thing is that none of these costumes are small and some are enormous. There's one scene where all the ensemble actors wear grass skirts - for a scene in the grasslands. The skirts have wired bottoms, like Scarlett O'Hara, and the only place to put these skirts is in that 4 foot walk way where you are changing clothes. They are so big that they take up all that 4 foot space and they overlap eachother. We have to lay them out ahead of time because it gets too busy at the beginning of the show to lay them out right before the actors need them. So for 20 minutes at the beginning of the show, all the actors and dressers are getting changed while walking - and tripping - over these huge skirts in the walkway. To get a better idea of this situation, go stand in your closet with 3 other people and 3 hula hoops and each of you try to put something on in 5 minutes or less. That's my life for 20 minutes every night until October.
But you learn to deal, and eventually you stop tripping over the skirts and everyone makes their cue and the show goes on. The weird thing about this show, for me, is that there is a whole staff of actors trained to go on for any ensemble character at a moment's notice. These are the "swing" actors. If someone is sick or hurt, a swing actor takes their place. Each swing actor has a costume for every number in the show so they can fill in for whatever actor is out and do whatever they do. This means that they know 10 or more different parts. Every day we get a list of which actors are out and which swing actor is filling in, we change out all the costumes and the swing actor performs the show until the regular actor gets back. Now this isn't all that unusual, because there has to be some way to cover if an actor is out.
The swing actors are required to be at the theatre for every show in case they are needed, which is a good thing, as I discovered last week.We had 5 shows last week and in two of them, an actor left in the middle of the show.
On Friday night, an actor got sick during the first act and left at intermission. So in that 15 minute time span, his dresser and the Head of Wardrobe rushed around like maniacs, figured out what costumes he used in the second act, took all the regular actor's costumes, shoes, hats, socks etc. downstairs and changed them out for the exact same costumes of a swing actor, took them upstairs to the backstage area, got the swing actor into his costume and he went out for the second act.
Last night, a dancer left in the middle of the second act. In. the. middle. She came back from one of her numbers, sat on the bench and said "I'm done." We all said "yeah, yeah" walked around, talked to each other, did our costume changes and turned around 5 minutes later and that dancer was gone. In her place was a frantic Wardrobe Head going through all the costumes for the second act, figuring out what was left and switching out costumes for the remaining hour of the show. The swing actress came upstairs, changed into a costume in about 2 minutes and went onstage. Not only did she have to go on in the middle of the act, but her first number was one where she wears a flying harness and is hooked to ropes and performs a ballet number about 40 feet off the stage. She had 5 minutes of notice.
I tell you, it's always an adventure.
Wow, what a show this is. I'd love to post pictures of these costumes and set pieces because they are Incredible, but Disney is very touchy about copywrites and I don't want to get sued. So, here's their official website with a couple of pictures.
http://www.disney.com.au/lionking/about_the_show/the_story.html
I started this show last week as a dresser - which is just what it sounds like, someone backstage who helps the actors in and out of their costumes. There are 16 dressers and probably 30-40 actors plus a whole rank of "swing" actors who are trained to fill in at a moment's notice if someone is sick or injured. More on that later.
Added to the people, there is a full sized Elephant puppet, a baby elephant puppet (one of the cutest things I've ever seen, her trunk is attached to her mama's tail!), two full sized giraffe puppets, about 15 hyenas, wildebeests, ostriches, fish, antelope, a pig, two cheetahs, several dozen birds, etc. etc. Backstage looks like a wild life zoo. Well, a wild life puppet zoo.
A quick run down of how this works, for those who don't know much about theatre. This show tours with a whole crew of people backstage to work with costumes, props, puppets and set pieces. However, in every city, they hire local people to fill in as dressers, props people and stage hands because the show is too big to function with just the touring crew. So I'm on this show as a local dresser for their 6 week show here in Tucson.
On stage are the actors. Principal actors are ones with bigger parts - like Simba and Mufasa, for those of you who have seen this musical or the animated movie - and the rest of the actors are called the male and female "ensemble" actors and they sing and dance and play all the rest of the parts. I'm a dresser for the ensemble actresses, which means I have 3 singers that I'm responsible for.
This show is really busy, and my girls change costumes about every 10-15 minutes, on average, for 2 hours and 45 minutes every night and twice on each weekend day. This means that we have a backstage area about 4 feet wide and about 6 feet long where 3 people change clothes - and puppets and shoes and hats and get their makeup done - AND it's also a walkway for anyone else trying to get past us and get on stage. So sometimes we have to stand up on the benches so that someone with a huge hyena puppet head can get past us to make their cue and get on stage. The cramped space was the first thing that took some getting used to.
The second thing is that none of these costumes are small and some are enormous. There's one scene where all the ensemble actors wear grass skirts - for a scene in the grasslands. The skirts have wired bottoms, like Scarlett O'Hara, and the only place to put these skirts is in that 4 foot walk way where you are changing clothes. They are so big that they take up all that 4 foot space and they overlap eachother. We have to lay them out ahead of time because it gets too busy at the beginning of the show to lay them out right before the actors need them. So for 20 minutes at the beginning of the show, all the actors and dressers are getting changed while walking - and tripping - over these huge skirts in the walkway. To get a better idea of this situation, go stand in your closet with 3 other people and 3 hula hoops and each of you try to put something on in 5 minutes or less. That's my life for 20 minutes every night until October.
But you learn to deal, and eventually you stop tripping over the skirts and everyone makes their cue and the show goes on. The weird thing about this show, for me, is that there is a whole staff of actors trained to go on for any ensemble character at a moment's notice. These are the "swing" actors. If someone is sick or hurt, a swing actor takes their place. Each swing actor has a costume for every number in the show so they can fill in for whatever actor is out and do whatever they do. This means that they know 10 or more different parts. Every day we get a list of which actors are out and which swing actor is filling in, we change out all the costumes and the swing actor performs the show until the regular actor gets back. Now this isn't all that unusual, because there has to be some way to cover if an actor is out.
The swing actors are required to be at the theatre for every show in case they are needed, which is a good thing, as I discovered last week.We had 5 shows last week and in two of them, an actor left in the middle of the show.
On Friday night, an actor got sick during the first act and left at intermission. So in that 15 minute time span, his dresser and the Head of Wardrobe rushed around like maniacs, figured out what costumes he used in the second act, took all the regular actor's costumes, shoes, hats, socks etc. downstairs and changed them out for the exact same costumes of a swing actor, took them upstairs to the backstage area, got the swing actor into his costume and he went out for the second act.
Last night, a dancer left in the middle of the second act. In. the. middle. She came back from one of her numbers, sat on the bench and said "I'm done." We all said "yeah, yeah" walked around, talked to each other, did our costume changes and turned around 5 minutes later and that dancer was gone. In her place was a frantic Wardrobe Head going through all the costumes for the second act, figuring out what was left and switching out costumes for the remaining hour of the show. The swing actress came upstairs, changed into a costume in about 2 minutes and went onstage. Not only did she have to go on in the middle of the act, but her first number was one where she wears a flying harness and is hooked to ropes and performs a ballet number about 40 feet off the stage. She had 5 minutes of notice.
I tell you, it's always an adventure.
posted by KBARRETT at 11:04 AM
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