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Costume Design & Construction

Historical Research Project (10D)

Read and review in your mind the characters and setting of one of the following plays: 

Chechov's decidedly slapstick one act The Marriage Proposal (aka The Proposal, or A Proposal of Marriage) which has a Mel Brooks/Three Stooges feel. This play may be written by one of the founders of serious modern drama, but this is no drama, it is more like a 1900 Russian Saturday Night Live skit without the intellectual content. 

Patience: Aristocratic ladies who were engaged to cavalry officers, now spun their fiancées in order to follow a fashionable (Wilde-like) poet in a goofy cult-like ardor.  The poet, meanwhile, has the hots for a low born milkmaid.  The soldiers plot to get the girls back, another sexy poet arrives on the scene, and chaos ensues. An operetta set in the Aesthetic movement in England of the 1880's.

The Contrast, a 1787 American play that combines comedy and patriotic sentiments.  Filled with characters that in transmuted form are still with us, the gossipy ingénues talk like 18th Century Valley Girls. The Contrast by Royall Tyler

Character Costume Figure Drawing : Step-by-Step Drawing Methods for Theatre Costume Designers

Complete Book of Sewing

The Costume Designer's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Designers

The Costume Technician's Handbook : A Complete Guide for Amateur and Professional Costume Technicians

 

Stage Costume Step-By-Step : The Complete Guide to Designing and Making Stage Costumes for All Major Drama Periods and Genres

The Magic Garment : Principles of Costume Design

Costume Construction

Elegantly Frugal Costumes : The Poor Man's Do-It-Yourself Costume Maker's Guide

Anton Chekhov's one act farce The Marriage Proposal, most typically is set in rural, turn of the last century (c.1900) Russia, when it was written.   In order to costume a play in this location and era it will be necessary to research dress as it was, in reality, in this location and time.  Even if you later wish to alter the costumes away from reality in your completed designs, you will need to know what the reality was in order to effectively exaggerate it, veer from it, or simplify it into a non realistic style. This holds true for the other two plays as well.  This week you will be looking for research sources which you may use in preparation for designing one of these plays. Below are some ideas of how research effects, but does not necessarily dictate completed designs for The Marriage Proposal:

Peasant Woman of Southern Russia, Primary source material ,1875

Costume Design for Natalia in The Marriage Proposal at The University of Georgia, (1986) by Tara Maginnis.

sketch taken from a portrait by Valentin Serov, Russia c. 1900.

Costume Design for Lomov in The Marriage Proposal at The University of Georgia, (1986).

Completed Costumes for The Marriage Proposal at The University of Georgia, (1986).

Step 2:

If you are near a large library where you have access to books for research, this is the first place you should look.  Read Library Costume Resources; A Supplement and/or Research Heresy  to learn how to find the maximum amount of research materials for this project.  Give a written report on the sources you find and post it to the Class Message Board.  Be sure to let the other students know the sections where you found the sources you found so that they can do the same. 

Step 3:

If you are not near a major library, or prefer to do your searching on the WWW, instead you may try searching online for your research information.  You may begin at the links lists for the following topics located at this site:

For The Marriage Proposal

• Russian Costume
• Victorian Costume: The 1890's
• Twentieth Century Costume: The 1900's

For Patience

• Victorian Dress Reform
• Victorian Costume
• Military Uniforms & Armor

For The Contrast

• 18th Century Costume Links

After you have exhausted these resources use a search engine to find more.  Collect your links and post a report to the Class Message Board telling others what you found and where the best links are. Include URLs of any pages you refer to.

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