How to Successfully Design Costumes for Theatre and Dance

Costuming for theater is more than it seems. When costuming a production there is much to be considered.

Most audience members visually see the performers on stage and do not recognize to what extent costumes play a vital role in the execution of a story. A costume designer goes through several rigorous tasks to complete the process of creating a costume specific to a character based on a story.

On stage, a character appears and what they wear influences how they interact with other actors, set pieces, choreography and many other elements they encounter. Costume design is a fundamental part of each production as it is in any other department related to mounting a production. It is a collaborative work between the lighting designer choreographer, director, and the costume designer.

To achieve a successful costume design, a designer must understand all of the requirements of the character by reading the play and highlighting each necessary element to make the character come alive. 

Research is a very important feature in executing accuracy of each design. The costumer must understand shape, color, style, and form for each era of clothing. 

Rendering is the second phase after the design process. After sufficient research has been conducted, the costume designer sketches and paints what each costume would look like on the actor’s body and how it would move on the character. After rendering costumes sufficient for the production and being approved by the director, the costumer could now start acquiring pieces of costume either by making, fabricating, renting, or borrowing.

Clear renderings provided to shop managers and fabricators makes the design process a bit easier. Patterns on costumes may not always be exactly what is sketched by the costumer, but it must be approved if a variant is acquired elsewhere. Costumes may be acquired from other theater companies that have used similar pieces, or that have been made, drafted from flat patterns. 

Before starting the process of acquiring costumes, measurements must be taken for each actor. These must be taken accurately for a proper fitting. Several measurements, which are standard to the clothing industry, can be used to design a costume, or the costume designer can formulate their own set of measurements.  

With all the necessary measurements, the design crew can now acquire all the costume pieces required for the production. After the chief costume designer has approved each piece, fittings can be scheduled for the actors and actresses. If the costume designer has selected a piece that is appropriate for the character but does not fit the actor, then alterations can be made to adjust the piece so that the costume fits the actor appropriately. 

Once all the pieces are acquired by the shop crew and approved by the costume designer, a costume parade is scheduled to present the selected costumes to the director for their authorization. In this meeting, it is essential to have the lighting designer present so they can also have an idea how the light will cast upon the characters’ costumes.

Once the director, the lighting designer, and the costume designer have approved all pieces, costumes can now be placed for the performers access during the technical week ahead of opening. If there is a particular case where the actor needs a piece for rehearsal, a mock piece or rehearsal piece is provided. 

These basic steps can assist with executing a proper costume design for a production. There are a lot of different elements to take into consideration when designing costumes. How they move on the performer, how they appear onstage under lights and how they fit performers are all elements to a successful design. Research, rendering, measuring, acquiring, and fittings must be done for every production. If all these steps are followed and fit within the budget of the production, you will have a successful costume design.

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Avelon Ragoonanan

Artistic designer with over 20 years in the performing arts from Trinidad and Tobago

Avelon Ragoonanan is an artistic designer with over 20 years experience in the performing arts. He is from Trinidad and Tobago. Avelon has designed productions in the Caribbean and the United States. He has worked with Pacific Lutheran University, Act 1 Theatre Productions, Cirque Du Soleil and many other theatres on several design elements including scenic design, costume design and construction. Avelon has designed for shows Off Broadway and on US tours for productions such as Dance Ensemble (2011-2015), Macbeth, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Almost Maine, Our Town, Empowered, Mrs. Packard, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Steel Magnolias, Inspecting Carol, Kiss Me Kate, Mother Courage, Three Sisters, and Into the Woods. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre and has won several awards for designing, acting, dancing, choreography and directing. Avelon has also had the honor to perform for the President of the Unites States in the Summit of the Americas in 2009. 

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

La Vita Quotidiana: The Artist and Daily Life

The phrase “la vita quotidiana” never hit me so hard as it did during COVID-19, when a dystopian reality hit the world in a wave, like 80,000 fans at Yankee Stadium moving as one amoeba, rising falling and watching the wave move through the stands.  I saw COVID-19 coming, like everyone. I had the privilege of a door to close to keep the virus out, human contact out, and money enough to get food and medicine delivered right to my door.

Here’s my artist’s daily life now without la vita quotidiana.  I wake up I check my handheld screen, make espresso and it’s never as good as if I was in Napoli, but it’s a placeholder for la vita quotidiana I am not living.  I drink the espresso and look at my gallon of Sicilian olive oil on the counter with the picture of the carrozzella, another placeholder for the trees my grandparents harvested as youth field workers, landless peasants.  I open another screen, type on a keyboard, conscious to keep my fingers and neck from stiffening.  Hours and hours dissolve while my brain works almost not attached to a body.  I turn to the piano keyboard, working on the lead sheet of “Fly Me to the Moon.”  I take a break to eat.  I go into my audio cave—two walls where I glued soundproofing to the walls and threw a sleeping bag over a makeshift lean-to. I can’t explain the architecture of how I rigged this, but I can try—I zip gunned a framed canvass to the underside of a corner shelf, and stuck a four-foot length of scrap wood under it as a leg.  I didn’t bother to measure or cut the leg, so it’s on a diagonal.  However it fits.  Perfect. Sturdy.  Holds the roof up.  Over the top goes the sleeping bag.  This is my audio cave. 

I record podcasts in there.  Yes, I talk to the walls.  As a kid in the Bronx this was the ultimate nightmare: once you start talking to the walls, you know you’re in trouble.  The people in the white coats are “coming to take you away.”  That was a popular song lyric in my youth. “They’re coming to take you away hah hah, they’re coming to take you away.” Maybe you remember it, you baby-boomers out there. I’m aiming for a hundred stories, a Decameron, because that one Giovanni B. did something admirable with his plague.  So, why can’t I?

I survived 2020 with a stack of N95 masks. How I got them is a story in and of itself--an under the table deal, what we used to call on the street--a racket. March 3rd, 2020 another fellow actor friend in NYC told me, “Annie I know a guy who sees what’s coming. He’s warehoused N95 masks, hand sanitizer, and packets of alcohol wipes.  Meet me on the corner of 13th and 6th and I’ll hook you up.”  Like a drug deal, my buddy, let’s call him Adam, jumped into my car without me even pulling over, as I drove eastbound on West 12th. He directed me to an undisclosed location. Take a right here, the next left, pull over, wait here, I’ll be right back.  I gave him some cash, and he brought me double what I paid for.  “You’re gonna need this,” he kept saying. “You above all.”  I didn’t know I wouldn’t see him for over a year from that moment.  We were all going, into effect, underground.  Back to our caves to face whatever home life we’d created or failed to.  Adam saved my life. Spleenless and immunocompromised with lungs already with fibrosis from radiation from a teenage bout with Hodgkin’s Disease, I was not slated to do well if I came in contact with this mysterious virus with its protein spiked crown, each sure to mutate.

I telephoned my old doctor, the hero who saved me in 1981 at Sloan-Kettering.   “I’m just calling to say hi,” I said, “I don’t have COVID.”

“If you had it, this would be a goodbye phone call,” he said to me.  “Ten or fifteen years from now it’ll be discussed how the hemoglobin structure of Italians made them more susceptible.  We look at malaria now, we see how people with variant hemoglobin structures are differentially affected.  But you, you’re from Bari, your bloodline is really Constantinopolitan.  You’re not really Italian.  I don’t mean that as an insult.  I mean it in terms of hemoglobin structure.  That might actually be protecting you from the path of the pathogen.”

I face-timed Rome every day.  Friends. Friends like family with a newborn baby who wouldn’t see the face of strangers the whole first year of his life.  I wondered about these babies of 2020, without interaction with other babies, without the sounds and smells of the cities around them, without faces except the ones they lived with in confinement.  Sheltering-in-place. In Rome and all over Italy, my friends and family were in “la zona rosa”—red zones; they couldn’t leave the house without a reason or written permit.  There was no passeggiata.  La vita quotidiana had come to a halt; la dolce vita,--on stop.  I’m thinking of emergency brakes, I’m thinking of those old cassette deck players, a simple square was the icon for “stop” and someone’s thick finger just pressed it, pressed it hard.  Stop.   Italy was two weeks ahead of New York in terms of the COVID wave so talking to my friends I knew what was coming ahead of time to New York.  I braced myself.  Stocked up on any food available for delivery. Dove deep into writing and painting still lifes of lemons.  I thought about the long de-evolution of humans in society; As kids we studied the local communal living in Iroquois longhouses where extended families and communities cooperated to survive and held ritual for spiritual awakeness and healing.  How did humans devolve in post-colonial capitalist society to believe that each human being needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps?  As President Obama once pointed out --What if you don’t have boots?  How did we acquiesce into living apart in “apart”ments, literally naming the trend?  How did we isolate and warehouse and medicate our elders into zombies in “old age homes?”  And how do these words not stick in our throats as they writhe out of our mouths?  How are humans praising whatever deity on one hand and not caring for elders on the other?  How do companies have individuals each paying a couple of bucks a month for invisible “cloud” space, the intellectual closet space and $12 bucks for this, $18 bucks for that, for audio files, website files, and then poof, one “php” change and it all evaporates like a Buddhist’s “I told you so.”  

The other day I took an N95 masked walk on City Island with another fellow actor.  A City Island elder hippie wise woman stopped me in the street: 

            “What’s your birthday?” she accosted me in a friendly “I see through you” way. 

            “Six-one” I told her, “Marilyn Monroe.”  

            “Ahh yes,” she said, “That’s right.  What year?”   

            “63,” I told her.  

            “Ahh, yes that was a good year.”  She nodded putting it all together and getting to the root of my soul:  “You don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s not.  That will be a lifelong struggle. And constant creative ideas.  You can’t turn it off.”

            “Yes, thanks,” I said.  “I’ll take all the free advice I can get.”

            And so, in search and hope for la vita quotidiana and la dolce vita once again, this one artist signs off for now, going to pop a croissant in the toaster, and dream of la cornetta di crema and the daily flow of a life in community with human touch I once knew, as I stare at screens of light, cup my hands over my eyes to give darkness as a gift to my brain, and keep breathing knowing full well every breath is a privilege while I have it.  One day, one day, the breath will fly free.  For now it stays with me, comes back home.

THANKS:

Annie first gives thanks and abbracci forti to Greg Cioffi and Emily Dinova who Annie claims she was the first to see them fall in love, love at first site, while overlapping in the costume shop in Manhattan Plaza.  Like all memories this one has a few puzzle pieces: the audition where Greg showed off his chest hair, then the costume room where Annie overlapped with Greg, and a minute later spotted Emily in the crosswalk on her way there.  BAM, it was a cosmic event.  Crosswalks are the place of city cosmos.  Greg and Emily were cast as lovers in Tony n’ Tina’s wedding.  Annie was cast as Grandma.  The rest is artistic history.  Here we are.   Annie celebrates la vita quotidiana that Emily and Greg have so artfully woven together. Graziemille to Adam Feingold, Emily Jordan Agnes Kunkel, and Sanford Kempin.

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Annie Rachele Lanzillotto

Author, poet, performance-artist, actor, director, songwriter, and activist

Author, poet, performance-artist, actor, director, songwriter, and activist, Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is a consummate cantastoria, one who sings epic tales in the piazza and walks with a big stick.  She has promoted audience participation in hundreds of performances everywhere from the Arthur Avenue Retail Market to the Guggenheim Museum to the Napoli Città Libro festival.   While sheltering-in-place alone, she embarked on a solo Decameron, with a nod to Boccaccio, to tell one hundred original stories, in her podcast, "Annie's Story Cave” which can be heard everywhere. 

Forthcoming are two memoir essays: “The Wallmakers / I Muratori,”  (KGB Bar Lit Mag online) edited by Pat Zumhagen; and “Another Spring” in the anthology “Talking to the Girls, Personal Reflections on The Triangle Factory Fire” (New Village Press), edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Anne Trasciatti.  Lanzillotto’s books include the double flip book: Hard Candy: Caregiving, Mourning, and Stage Light; and Pitch Roll Yaw, (Guernica World Editions), L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press; finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award), and Schistsong (Bordighera Press.) Her original albums include: Blue Pill; Never Argue With a Jackass; Swampjuice: Yankee with a Southern Peasant Soul.  Lanzillotto was on the founding board of the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition.  She is the Artistic Director of Street Cry Inc.  Member of Theatre 68.  All love and thanks and in memory of the ancestors.

LINKS to Annie’s work: 

·      Podcast: “Annie’s Story Cave” is on every platform and: StreetCryInc.org. 

·      Books: order through any bookstore, or here http://www.annielanzillotto.com

·      Audiobooks: https://www.audible.com/author/Annie-Rachele-Lanzillotto/B00APRVO9E

·      Original albums: annielanzillotto.bandcamp.com

·      Paintings: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/annie-lanzillotto

·      Icewoman Performance Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3FimguzDxs

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so. 

The Storytelling Celebrant

Mike and Lauren met by an accident that was no accident as far as the universe was concerned. Kris and Sabrina read each other’s minds and finish each other’s sentences.

Molly and Nick overcame what they perceived to be a mixed-faith marriage—they were two different kinds of Protestant. Matt and Suchitra, on the other hand, blended Hindu and Jewish traditions with rom-com references and gifts all around.

April and Pat first met as kids, when the minor gap in their ages yawned endlessly between them. Elaine and Stuart fell in love at college, broke up around graduation, and then found each other again after their marriages ended and their kids were grown. Ben and Leigh’s life together began with a hilarious knee-deep slog through snow—and ended only a short time later, due to cancer. Ben’s family became Leigh’s family, and neither was left entirely alone, but at the end there was no tidy bow, there was only grief. 

These are true stories. 

I know because I was their storytelling celebrant. 

My job simultaneously does and does not reflect what you might read in the “Modern Love” section of the New York Times. Every set of clients I’ve worked with has a story that is theirs alone. They live out a drama or a symphony or rap song or a hard rock fable and it’s my job to put it to words. Finding their story is thrilling. Watching them recognize themselves in the mirror I’ve made is deeply satisfying. 

A storytelling celebrant builds ceremony around the client’s larger story—the narrative that led to the life-changing moment before them. I talk to my clients about their childhoods, their lives now, their friends and family, and work and play. I encourage them to talk about their dreams for the future. And then I connect the dots to create a narrative that shows how the milestone event in their lives, whether a wedding, memorial, baby blessing, birthday or healing ceremony, fits their journey in life. 

I tell the story in my own words, tempered by the client’s vocabulary and style so that if feels like their words. I tell it in readings and quotes that comment on a trajectory or state of being like theirs. And I tell it in rituals, which are ceremonies within the ceremony to enact the transition or commemoration underway. Ritual sounds occult, but it’s not. I look for and create rituals that are as specific as possible to my clients.

But the job doesn’t begin or end with telling stories, or it would just be another way to monetize writing skill and charisma. What makes it different is what makes it special, even sacred: I hold their lives in my hands. 

In some ways, it’s not so unusual. We hand over our lives, or parts of them, on a daily basis to doctors, dentists, chefs and line cooks, Uber drivers, and random others who might or might not stop at red lights. But to me, it’s a big deal. People hand over their love lives to me provisionally and temporarily. After looking into my eyes or at my website, or both, they decide they can trust me enough to share details they’ve never told anyone.

I make the commitment to be worthy of that trust and then dive into their lives. I feel their love, or their loss—touch it, smell it, taste it, roll it around in my own heart until I understand it as something that had to happen, something the universe yearned for. And then I share their story in a way that contextualizes their lives for guests who have come to be witnesses and participants in the big moments at hand. 

* * *

I didn’t know I was doing it, it but I was preparing to become a celebrant all my life. When I was a Catholic schoolgirl, I wanted nothing more than to be a saint—and more than a saint: a martyr. I wanted to live for others, to put their lives before my own, to live a life of devotion to what I conceived at the time to be God. 

I planned to be a priest. But celibacy didn’t attract me. Nor did solitude. I did like the nearly all-black outfits, but I’d seen better. What attracted me to the idea of priesthood, though, was the call to stand in a sacred space, to hold the moment still and let meaning open up inside of it, or encourage meaning to express itself, or drag meaning out of its hiding place so that people who were starved for it could find some nourishment for what we call their souls.

Later, finding a hair shirt hard to come by, I softened my stance upon learning that the Catholic Church wouldn't let women become priests (as if the crucifer isn’t phallic enough for all of us). I went into a good long funk. What followed was a more delicious rebellion against all organizations and then another dream for touching the singular moment. I focused on the dream of working as an actor.

Acting had been a parallel dream anyway. Like Walt Whitman and most kids, I contained multitudes and I saw the world contained multitudes too. Most of the occupations I knew of came from TV. So I considered the dream of following the law, but in my world that meant putting people in jail or keeping them out, and that seemed like an awfully limited life.

I didn’t want to be just a doctor, detective, or spy; as an actor, I thought, I could be them all. 

This was a dream my parents were hesitant to nurture, probably because they didn’t want me dead on Mulholland drive, but it was a dream that fit. It felt eerily familiar to the priesthood, because like the priesthood, it was another dream of standing in sacred space. As an actor, I could inhabit the moments of a character’s life and let that character live. Express that character’s struggles. Drag that character out of imagination and into a four-dimensional existence. Wait a lot of tables. Wait for calls and callbacks. For lighting to be set. For my cue.

Sheri as an Active Ensemble Member of The Neo-Futurists circa 1989

I supplemented the waiting with writing—monologues, performance art, poems, textbooks, stories and articles for kids and adults—until the writing became my primary form of expression and performance became its accent. If my life were a song, performing became the occasional syncopation in the melodic line.

Still, I was intrigued and drawn in by the sacred. So I supplemented the waiting and the writing with a stint in the Unitarian Universalist seminary, where I discovered a host of brilliant creative thinkers who were not so much about themselves as . . . whatever it is that is bigger than all of us.  I was still allergic to organizations—to clubs—but seminary affirmed for me the connection we all have to each other, to the earth, and to existence itself. 

After I left seminary, I stumbled on the Celebrant Foundation and Institute, where I continued exploring the importance of myth, ritual, and celebration. I found echoes of myth in the stories of my own life and I decided to help locate and express them in the stories of others.

About ten years ago, when storytelling blossomed in Chicago, I happened to be right there, with redbud petals falling beautifully on my shoulders and magnolia blossoms smashing grossly underfoot. I found ways to use story to express both the melody and the syncopated beat of my life—your life—anybody’s life.

My biggest and most delightful challenge, now, is to respect and observe the fact that not everyone wants their life told outright. Some of my clients tell me they only want their stories, their secrets, close enough to hold. They want to share their story with each other, not the whole world. So I give them their story, and then I excise it from their ceremony. I find and read sacred texts, profane texts, and texts I pull out of my own brain to express the truths behind their story. 

And I encode their story inside their vows to one another.

And I help them enact their story—by having them set on fire all the reasons they shouldn’t marry. Or by having their guests make sacred vows to support their union. Or by helping them weave an unbreakable rope of the values or experiences that tie them to each other. Or by a myriad of other actions that symbolize the moment before them. Together, we tease meaning out into the open. We share it in a way that feels safe and true. We get to inhabit the romantic and/or funny and/or sad and always the sacred. 

I get to live on inside those moments, albeit as a minor, even forgotten character. But more importantly and more joyously, I get to make that moment eternal for them. It's a privilege my childhood self could never have dreamed up. 

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Sheri Reda

Writer, performer, and storytelling celebrant.

Sheri Reda, who is a certified master life-cycle celebrant, lives and works out of Chicago and will travel almost anywhere. Sheri was a member of Julie Laffin’s performance collective The Trancesisters, and remains a Neofuturist as well as a poet, storyteller, and performer. 

She’s a regular participant in Lifeline Theatre’s Fillet of Solo and has performed at Story Sessions, This Much is True, Essay Fiesta, and various other juried events. She also facilitates Narrative Medicine and Jungian introspection. Sheri’s communications firm is called Flow and Moment, LLC. Her celebrancy practice is Flow Ceremonies. She can be reached at sheri.a.reda@gmail.com. Sheri’s most recent stories have been published in The Examined Life Journal and in the anthology entitled Chicago Storytellers, Stage to Page.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

You Should Take That Stage Combat Class. Here’s Why…

Coming from a Stage Combat teacher and Fight Choreographer, this probably sounds pretty self-serving on my part, but please hear me out.  What is our job as actors and performers?  That’s always my first question at any beginner Stage Combat workshop.  What is our job? At the end of the day, it has a relatively simple answer.  

We tell STORIES!  Stage Combat is PHYSICAL storytelling.

I’m going to take a quick moment to debunk, as it were, one of the common misunderstandings that I hear quite frequently before I delve into why I think Stage Combat is ESSENTIAL for any performer.

“Stage Combat just FEELS fake” or “I would never fight someone that way.”  

Well, that’s kind of the point.  Stage Combat isn’t so much a study of fighting as it is a study of SAFETY.  One of the mantras I heard over and over again when starting out was, “Safety first, safety last, safety always.” When all is said and done, especially when working Fight Choreography for stage, the most essential goal is to make sure everyone involved is safe and can repeat the choreography night after night.  If you ever watch a real fight, you’ll notice you can barely follow along with what’s happening.  That’s not what we want.  Again, we need to tell a story.  What feels unnatural is necessary for us to effectively communicate to an audience what’s going on.  In short, we’re not looking for something that looks “real”, reality is subjective.  You and I can witness the same event and have entirely different perspectives on it.  What we want is to tell a story that is BELIEVABLE within our given circumstances.

When you go to any kind of acting school, you are learning different techniques from different teachers with different schools of thought.  You have Meisner, Stanislavski, Viewpoints, etc.  Ultimately, every performer going through this process will eventually pick and choose the best tools for them and keep it in their acting toolbox.  With that in mind, I want to delve into all the different tools one can acquire from taking Stage Combat classes.

PARTNERING 

Success or failure in any branch of the performing arts is, for the most part, heavily reliant on partnering.  Collaboration is such an integral aspect in this business, where so many different departments must show up and bring their A game to create something truly spectacular. This is especially true in Stage Combat.  As one of my first teachers once said, “My job is to keep my partner safe and make them look good.  If my partner is doing the same, we have a successful partnership and are able to tell an exciting story, while keeping everyone safe.”  If listening and reacting to a scene partner is crucial to tell an effective story on stage, it is absolutely essential for our purposes in Stage Combat.  Studying this art form has helped me hone my receptive skills and assisted me in connecting with my partners on stage.  Since a lot of our cooperation with fights on stage has to be non-verbal, it helps to foment a kind of sixth sense with the rest of the cast and crew.

STAKES AND INTENTION

I don’t know about you but one of the most common notes I received in acting class was “Raise the stakes.”  As a person for whom English was a second language, the first couple of times had me worried I had somehow enrolled in a culinary school.  Stakes and Intention are paramount in telling our stories.  It’s what helps draw in the audience as it allows them to connect with the characters on a more emotional and visceral level.  Studying Stage Combat requires you to explore the ideas of breath and vocals.  A lot of times, what makes a fight interesting is not necessarily how cool or flashy the moves are, but the moments IN BETWEEN the moves.  How does Tybalt react to an angry Romeo hellbent on avenging his friend’s death?  What is Macbeth’s mental state when he finds out that Macduff was “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped?”  In musicals, characters burst out into song when their emotions reach a point where words are no longer enough; they HAVE to SING.  It is the same with Stage Combat.  Violence happens in our stories when words are no longer enough and the only recourse is to get PHYSICAL.

BODY AWARENESS

Whether you’re a performer who only does plays, or musicals, or both, performing requires a good amount of physical stamina, as well as body awareness.  It doesn’t matter whether you are working on multiple dance numbers or really specific blocking; having a good knowledge and relationship with your own body is crucial.  I have worked with students who arrive barely able to tell right from left (a slight exaggeration), and leave with a deeper connection with their bodies.  They are more specific in their movements, which in turn aids them in being able to tell a wide variety of stories with their bodies.

 DIRECTOR’S EYE

While not something you can necessarily master from just one Stage Combat class, one of the most helpful tools I walked away with was a better understanding of the Director’s Eye.  So much of what we do to keep each other safe and sell a fight sequence on stage relies heavily on angles and, you probably guessed it, marks. Being able to calculate and adjust your distance with your partner, how far Upstage Right you have to be, how long must you extend your arm, are just some of the aspects that come up when performing a fight onstage. Work on this art form long enough, and you start to develop a better sense of that outside eye, which can be invaluable for performing onstage, especially when we start dealing with a thrust stage or theater in the round.

TRAINING DURING COVID

COVID-19 has affected every single aspect of our industry.  However, if there’s anything artists are universally known for, it’s adapting.  The Stage Combat community, like all other artistic communities, is lucky in that it has no shortage of creative and driven individuals.  Now, while it does present its own set of challenges, there are plenty of opportunities to start your journey.  You can visit the Society of American Fight Directors website and search teachers currently offering classes by regions at safd.org. While some of the benefits are limited in this virtual setting, it does offer you the opportunity to truly work on your specificity, preparing you for the day when you get to finally face off with a partner.

THANK YOU FOR INDULGING ME

A Stage Combat Nerd such as myself can go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, but these are some of the skills that a performer can hone from Stage Combat classes.  So, it doesn’t really matter if you want to become the next Jackie Chan or Jason Statham.  

You don’t have to walk away falling in love with Stage Combat like I did.  But I can assure you, if you are willing to take a Stage Combat class, perhaps 2 or 3, you will walk away with tools that will undoubtedly make you a more well-rounded and interesting performer.

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Gabriel Rosario

Advanced Actor Combatant, Stunt Performer and Fight Choreographer

Gabriel Rosario is a graduate from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy and is currently a Faculty Member in its Stage Combat Department.  He is an Advanced Actor Combatant, Stunt Performer and Fight Choreographer who has participated in plays such as Foggy Dew, The Adventures of Don Quijote, Follies, The Relationship Type, as well as being Fight Captain and Assistant Fight Choreographer for the World Premiere of Treasure Island at the Fulton Theatre and its East Coast Premiere at Maine State Music Theatre.  His film and TV credits include Dead@17: Rebirth, Tower of Silence, as well as the upcoming pilot, Dry Time, etc.   His credits as a Fight Choreographer include Romeo and Juliet, Faust on 147th Street, and Valor, Agravio y Mujer (HOLA Award Best Fight Choreography),  and La Paz Perpetua at Repertorio Español Rut and the short film Les Chienes.  Rosario is also an instructor at Swordplay in New York City.

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.

Labors of the Creative Mind

I have been asked on more than one occasion to describe the most onerous aspect of being a writer. While the calling is certainly replete with all sorts of challenges that threaten one’s resolve every day, ultimately there is one truth of life as a writer that supersedes all others – the cruel and unforgiving reality that the creative mind never sleeps.  It systematically rejects the call of somnolence and with indefatigable vitality spins filaments of ideas that reside in every corner of the brain, where they await, with restless anticipation, the day they may emerge from the artistic womb for all to experience and enjoy. 

Alas, there is a reward for all of this restive toiling. When the labor is complete, there is certainly cause for joy and celebration. The discovery of new work by eager readers is a wonderful moment. 

But for the writer, any real jubilance yields almost instantly to the evanescence triggered by the conception and eventual birth of the next idea – and the next – and the next…

So, a writer must adapt, learn to accept the physical fatigue that results from this somewhat aberrant nature of his or her existence. It’s not so bad. Clearly there are worse ways to live your life. Still, challenges abound.  If a writer desires to also engage in the aspects of a conventional life, certain concessions have to be made in order to accommodate this alternative lifestyle. This requires a values triage – an assessment of those things that are essential to one’s well being and those which may be sacrificed for the greater good. 

This was not easy for me at first. 

I quit coaching the baseball team at the high school where I still teach when my older son, Nick, turned five years old. The reason? I didn’t want to miss anything that both my boys were doing. Thus, coaching both Nick and Anthony’s baseball teams, and attending every ice hockey game they played or any other event of which they were a part was non-negotiable. Also off the table was the time I spent every week with my parents, who were both ill for many years. They had done everything for me while I was growing up and I would not abandon them now. And of course, there was that whole teaching thing I was doing. Five classes of young minds who were counting on me to make their learning experience interesting or at the very least palatable had to remain a top priority. 

This presented quite a quandary. There wasn’t much time left to nurture my budding artistic offspring. 

Unable to resist the creative call, I carved out time from the remaining hours in my day. In addition to forgoing sleep, I often ate my meals on the run, resisted the allure of popular sitcoms and HBO dramas, and spent fewer hours with friends. Even my regular exercise routine had to be altered, something that resulted in the unintended acquisition of a few extra pounds. As I’m writing this I am smirking a bit over the somewhat delayed epiphany.

 At the risk of belaboring the motif, doesn’t every pregnancy result in a little weight gain?   

I first discovered this reality of life as a writer shortly after the publication of my first novel, ECHOES FROM THE INFANTRY. 

Before I could even savor my first appearance at Barnes and Noble or enjoy the thoughtful messages from readers I had received, I was caught up in the tumult of another idea – one that had completely consumed me. It was an idea for a story about a very special baseball player – Mickey Tussler. 

THE LEGEND OF MICKEY TUSSLER went on to receive wonderful reviews from both readers and professional organizations. I even received a call from Jason Koornick, Executive Producer at Eye In The Sky Entertainment in Los Angeles, California, whose inquiry about a film adaptation of the Mickey Tussler story soon became a hit television film and Netflix favorite “A Mile in His Shoes,” starring Dean Cain and Luke Schroder. There were speaking engagements, including The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, appearances at schools and libraries, radio interviews and many other unexpected accolades.

I was proud of Mickey, a feeling previously reserved only for Nick and Anthony. 

But I felt an uneasiness - an ineffable force imploring me to resist complacency and pursue that which had yet to be acknowledged.  I was pleased with all of the attention and praise for the book, but that pesky desire to just keep on writing would not allow for excessive celebration. What could I do but heed the call? I was already well into book two of the Mickey Tussler series and I was nurturing a handful of other ideas and projects. So I pressed on, unable to stop myself. The need to create was mastering, tantamount to the sweet song of the Sirens who would lure unwitting sailors to the jagged shoreline.  

I was tired. But there was no rest for the weary.      

I can still recall a family vacation to Hershey Park while I was in the midst of my creative tornado. It was before the age of portable electronic devices. I was enjoying the rides and other attractions with Nick and Anthony when without warning, I began having originative contractions. New ideas had risen to the surface without any discernible cause or provocation. I was seized by the terror of losing any of my unexpected inspiration. Unwilling to acquiesce to inconvenience, I raced frantically through the park, in search of something on which to record these ideas and of course a writing implement. The fact that I spent a good part of that same afternoon huddled behind the Cotton Candy/Funnel Cake booth scribbling on white napkins with a borrowed Bic pen was a testament to my affliction.  

My fertility was at an all-time high. But so were my labor pains. 

I was fully immersed in the sequel to the Mickey Tussler story, SOPHOMORE CAMPAIGN, as well as crafting a thriller NOBODY HAS TO KNOW, which were both released the same year. 

That meant missing a few family barbecues and birthday parties as well as some impromptu invitations to grab drinks or something to eat with friends. Not everyone understood. And I had a difficult time explaining it. Few could grasp the notion that my need to create had robbed me as well of things I love. I hadn’t been to the movies (one of my favorite pastimes) in months. I couldn’t recall the last time I had hiked at Robert Moses State Park and I had missed more than a few Mets and Islanders games. I was aware of just how consuming my writer life had become. I vowed to change. I think perhaps I did, for a short time. But then whispering to me, ever so softly from somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, was the idea for a third Tussler book, WELCOME TO THE SHOW.  

There was no postpartum depression.  And the labors of love continued. 

One may even argue they have intensified since. In the fall of 2017, while vacationing in Montauk with my family, I was asked by one of the founders of indie music producers MP Music House if I ever thought about writing lyrics. The question was flattering and definitely intriguing as well. But I was well into the writing of a memoir called I BECAME AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OUTLAW and playing with an idea for a prequel to the Mickey Tussler trilogy. My time was already stretched alarmingly thin. I said no. I was already carrying quite a litter. I didn’t have room for another. So I remained focused on my time with my family, enjoying the surf and sand of one of my favorite places. 

Then it happened. Again. 

While hiking up and through the dunes at Hither Hills State Park, something stirred inside me. Like a tiny kick. I ignored it. Then it happened again. Thoughts of my parents flooded my mind.  I found myself playing with words and arrangements while I walked. First came the chorus. Then the first verse. I was powerless to resist. In less than two hours, the first full song I had ever written, “Daddy Wrote The Music,” was born. 

I was a proud papa. But I knew what this meant. There would be more to follow. 

I cringed. This would require even more resolve now. I was going to have to try to navigate the creative waters that continued to swirl, a vortex of present and future projects that would undeniably leave me sleep deprived and inordinately time challenged and fatigued. It would not be easy. But I did not lament this latest challenge. 

The fact is you’ll rarely hear me complain because if I were to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. The joy of bringing an idea from its conception, through its infancy and finally to fruition is unlike any other. Everybody can sleep or kick back and relax. But so few of us get to savor the sweet taste of the creative process. 

Some time ago, I heard an artist describe his talent as both “a blessing and a curse.” Initially, I found that to be a curious paradox. How could the force that brings you such joy also be the instrument of such vexation?  It is only years later that I fully appreciate the veracity of that sentiment

There’s a price to be paid for creative work.  

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Frank Nappi

Frank Nappi is an American author, lyricist and high school English teacher.

Frank Nappi has taught high school English and Creative Writing for over thirty years. His debut novel, ECHOES FROM THE INFANTRY, received national attention, including MWSA’s silver medal for outstanding fiction. His follow-up novel, THE LEGEND OF MICKEY TUSSLER, garnered rave reviews as well, including a movie adaptation of the touching story “A Mile in His Shoes,” starring Dean Cain and Luke Schroder. Nappi continues to produce quality work, including SOPHOMORE CAMPAIGN, the intriguing sequel to the much-heralded original story, and the thriller, NOBODY HAS TO KNOW, which received an endorsement from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille. The third installment of Nappi’s Mickey Tussler series, WELCOME TO THE SHOW, was released in April 2016 and led to a musical adaptation of the award-winning series. “Buckle Up and Dig In” was released by MP Music House in September of 2017. Nappi collaborated on the writing of the song and after signing with MP Music House, has written the lyrics for several original songs, including multiple pieces for breakout artists Atticus Jones and Tom Petrone.  Nappi’s latest work, I BECAME AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL OUTLAW is a poignant, humorous memoir that chronicles Nappi’s elementary school days and the impact they still have on him many years later. Nappi makes his home on Long Island, where he has lived his entire life. For more information about Frank Nappi and his work, please visit the author’s website – www.franknappi.com  

G&E In Motion does not necessarily agree with the opinions of our guest bloggers. That would be boring and counterproductive. We have simply found the author’s thoughts to be interesting, intelligent, unique, insightful, and/or important. We may not agree on the words but we surely agree on their right to express them and proudly present this platform as a means to do so.