by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
Last week, EU had the opportunity to get the inside scoop on the what the actors wear in the Lion King, from the body puppets and masks, to the seemingly revealing dance outfits.
According to Willie Wilson, Puppet Supervisor, “Mostly the masks are made out of carbon fiber; it’s a light weight [material] that formula race cars are made of.” Even up close, the masks look like they are carved from a whole piece of wood, but are surprisingly light. Scar’s mask weighs only 9 ounces and Mufasa’s weighs 11 ounces.
Scar’s spiky “hair” on the mask is made out of turkey feather spines, which are then covered in cheese cloth and then painted. The fearsome teeth are made out of a foam material, unlike the rest of the mask, which is made out of carbon fiber. The movement of Scar’s mask over actor Dan Donohue’s face, looks like an organic outgrowth of the actor’s own head movements, but are in fact the result of a motor that the actor controls with his hand. The motors are Japanese (because the Japanese use them in their own mask theatre) and the company always travels with a few replacements on hand in case the motor breaks during performance. Wilson says that they test the motors regularly but that “you never know what will happen onstage.” The mask Mufasa wears during his confrontation with Scar also has the same kind of motor.
The motorized puppetry is the exception rather than the rule in the production. Most of the puppets are hand operated, using methods that have been available for hundreds of years. Zazu, the bird advisor to King Mufasa, is completely hand operated by actor Mark Cameron Pow. Zazu’s very flexible neck is actually constructed out of a slinky, which was then covered by a fine mesh. Attached to the mesh are hand-painted fabric feathers.
The longest and perhaps largest puppet in the show is the elephant that comes down the aisle during ‘The Circle of Life.’ Each leg of the elephant is actually filled by an actor. Once the actors come backstage, the elephant is lifted off of them using a winch system. It’s then stored above until it’s needed later in the show, when it’s lowered onto the actors.
Besides borrowing from the mask traditions of Oriental theatre, Africa has a strong influence on the design of the costumes and masks. Many of symbols and designs printed or carved on the fabric and masks are African in origin.
In the realm of costumes, Keith Coultas’ job is to oversee maintenance and handling, which includes making sure that the costumes are laundered properly, managing the dressers and preventing excessive wear and tear.
Some of the pleated and chemically treated fabrics in the show are reset once a week and others are zipped into a corset, so that they can be cleaned separately from the corset, which require dry cleaning. Dry cleaning would relax the fabric and re-pleating is actually more expensive than just replacing the fabric altogether.
Most fabrics in the show are exclusive to the show itself. “We use spandex, cotton twill, silk and nylon, but almost every fabric that’s used in the show is custom dyed or painted. You can’t run to Jo Ann’s and get a bolt of Gazelle fabric,” remarks Coultas. There are 16 dressers backstage to help actors in and out of costumes and puppetry. The costuming department has the costume changes down to a science. Each of the actors are assigned a number, and all of their costumes have that number, along with a letter. Dressers are assigned a number as well and wear tags so that the actors can identify them, since dressers tend to change from city to city.
“For the first weekend,” Coultas tells us “…[all the dressers] have name tag with their number, their name and the dresser’s name from the last city…so…[an actor] can say, ‘I don’t know if number 15…[dresses] me but Celeste did it for me in Ft. Myers.’”
At the end of each show, they do a staggering 15 loads of laundry in professional grade, large size washer and dryers. A local person is generally hired to do the laundry and they must carefully follow the care instructions for each costume. Many of the dancers wear body suits that are matched precisely to the individual dancer’s skin tone. One of the things they have to watch for, especially on those costumes, is fade, which Coultas tells us can depend on “the local water, the heat, stress factors and sweat factors.”
Coultas remarks that, due to the naturalistic style of the show, “originally the concept was that the actors would run around on stage barefoot, but Actor’s Equity said no, on top of actors and singers saying no, so we found a great little shoe from Capezio that we paint up to their skin tone.”
Other shoes in the show are black to represent hooves, such as the actors who play the Zebras. A few of the other shoes are actually lace-up, but have convenient and quick way to slip the shoes on, such as elastic shoe laces. The hyenas wear combat boots, but the boots zip up on sides, which takes far less time than lacing them up.
The Lion King will be running through April 15th. For tickets and show times go to artistseries.fccj.org or call (904) 632-3373 or 1-888-860-BWAY.
Some costumes, like the Grassland outfit worn by ensemble, require special attention. The Grasslands headdress uses 3,000 stalks of grass per year. Ensemble members wear the huge headdresses with towering grasses, and a corset with a green silk weave. Attached to the corset is skeletal hemp rope hoop skirt, meant to capture the motion of the grass. The fringe on the bottom is made up of three different kinds of rope, untwisted.
Coultas must watch the boning on the corsets, which eventually starts to curl in about 6 to 9 months on the road. Sometimes they replace pieces that don’t work or are hard to maintain. The boning used to be plastic, but because it became brittle (perhaps due to temperature changes while traveling) they replaced it with metal boning. The hemp ropes that come down to the hoop experience the most wear, as does the fringe on the bottom, particularly due to an actor bending their knee too sharply, so that the fringe brushes the ground. The skirts are made to the specific height of the actor who will be wearing them, though they can be taken up about three inches.
· It took 17,000 hours to build the puppets and the masks alone.
· 300 feet of carbon fiber and 750 pounds of silicone rubber were used to make the masks in the show.
· There are 49 wigs in the show.
· There are over 100 ants on the Ant-Hill Lady.
· 143 people are directly involved with the daily production of the show.
· Actors in the ensemble have up to 17 costume changes and 9 costumes.
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