Playhouse Creatures 10

Costume

Sophie and I are kind of heads of costume for this piece, due to the fact that we have a lot of experience and passion in the area. First we focused on character ideas, we want each character to have a set colour that will be recurring and will be matched with their personality, objectives or status. This will also help to link the different actresses playing each character. 

• Mrs Marshall - dark blue, for the pessimism and coolness in her, it's a strong colour. 
• Mrs Farley - Red, passionate and volatile, not entirely trustable?
• Nell - yellow, it's natural and only connected with nature, grounded but sunny and happy
• Doll - Brown, dark colours, she is poor and almost never washes. Her clothes would be dirty. Simple.
• Mrs Betterton - Purple, the colour of royalty and magnificence

We also had additional requirements for some of the characters:

• Mrs Farley has two costumes, both a tatty, drab outfit for before she is an actress, as well as an easily removed petticoat which is a gift from the king. 
• Mrs Barry must also have a tatty dress
• Nell will need a tatty, drab dress to have in early scenes as well as shoes since her feet will be visible in her jig

The boys also need to be thought about, they will both need proper shoes since they don't have long skirts to cover flats.

• Otway - poor, he will be in brown colours however we will have a sense of a bohemian look about him with layers and accessories etc
• Rochester - fine clothing, colours of gold/purple

Boys scene:

• Phillips - Highest ranking, he is a governor, dressed in shooting gear.
• Collins - 2nd highest rank, judge, shooting gear
• Tench - 3rd ranking, he's a captain, he'll be in shooting gear and me and Sophie are playing around with the idea of battle scars
• Harry - military, is a helping hand, he'll be in navy colours

For the movement pieces, which we obviously can't wear our long dresses for, however we're thinking of having black underneath which we can whip our dresses off of and be ready to go. 

Finally, we had to work out how many actresses were playing each character, if there'd be enough time for a costume change and subsequently how many costumes we'd need:

• 1 drab Mrs Barry costume
• 1 fancy Mrs Barry costume/fancy coat to cover up drab costume
• 2 Mrs Betterton costumes
• 3 Doll costumes
• 1 drab Nell costume
• 2 fancy Nell costumes
• 1 drab Mrs Farley costume
• 2 Fancy Mrs Farley costumes
• 2 Mrs Marshal costumes
• 1 Rochester costume
• 1 Otway costume (we need to check Harry and Yunusa's measurements however)
• 1 Harry costume
• 1 Phillips costume
• 1 Tench costume
• 1 Collins costume

Plus various accessories:

• 1 petticoat for Mrs Farley
• 3 angel wings for the muses
• shoes for Nell
• pregnancy bump