Do It Yourself - Makeup Plot

For my make up your own option I would like to talk about the way theatre make up can be altered to embody different characters. From working on my high school’s makeup crew for the fall play’s and spring musical’s I learned the basic make up plot for characters. The standard male’s makeup is a dark tech base, black eyeliner, brown lipstick, and a dark blush.




The standard female’s makeup was a lite beige base, black eyeliner, pink lipstick, and a medium pink blush.




This standardized makeup plot was used mostly for extras in scenes. Different characters require different make up though so it was always very common to alter the makeup accordingly. Some common changes would be to make individuals look older than they really are. Some easy ways to do so is by adding age lines. One can do so by adding crows feet, frown lines, or smile lines using white and gray eyeliner.






Another common character in theatre is children. Their makeup differs from adults in that one uses pink blush on both males and females and they also apply the blush heavier so the children are sure to look happy and chipper from even a far distance from the stage.




Some other common characters would be a good fairy or witch. A makeup plot for such a character would be similar to that of the standardized makeup plot, but in addition add in glitter eye shadow and a light layer of glitter over all of the skin.




Also some fake eyelashes might be used too to add extra attention to the actor’s eyes. A character like a popular girl or the bubbly girl might use extra blush and fake eyelashes to add attention to her beauty.




An easy way to transform an actor into a villain is by acting scars as well. In addition to scars, dark eye makeup can be added to differentiate villains from heroes.




The colors may be a bit off, but one should be able to get the main idea from the labels and images =)

Passion Piece - The Beauty and the Beast

Ever since I was little I wanted to see “Beauty and the Beast”. The Disney movie of it came out when I was about four years old and it quickly became my favorite cartoon. I had everything imaginable that had to do with it like a toy magic mirror, clothes with Beauty and the Beast on them, bedding with the characters on them and the matching curtains, the Barbie and Ken doll or Belle and the Beast , etc. Affectionately my parents call the year 1993, The Year of the Beast. That Christmas I even insisted that The Beast was bringing my Christmas presents and not Santa Clause. As you can figure all these events have helped me decide to do my passion piece on “Beauty and the Beast”.

During my high school career my drama director choose to perform “Beauty and the Beast” as our Spring musical. Unfortunately I had to have my wisdom teeth out the same week as show week so I was unable to be part of the production or to even go see it. This past summer though the local summer drama group performed it though. The cast was made up of students from about four of the neighboring school districts. I was not able to be part of the cast since I had already graduated from high school and because of my job, but I was able to go see the production. I can honestly say it was the best production I have ever seen. Each and every one of the cast members were on mark and fit their characters perfect. Although I was able to see a local performance of “Beauty and the Beast”, I was not able to see it on Broadway before it closed up. I have a lot of fond memories that go hand in hand with this story line, but it also seems that I suffer some bad luck whenever it actually comes to seeing it performed on stage.

The musical “Beauty and the Beast” was based off of the Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast”. “Beauty and the Beast” was one of Broadway’s longest running productions. It use to be the sixth longest running production, but it recently got bumped to the seventh longest running production. It ran for thirteen years between 1994 and 2007. It started its Broadway run at the Palace Theatre and was later transferred to the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It was both theatre’s longest running production. It was directed by Robert Jess Roth and its choreography was done by Matt West. Seven additional songs were written just for the stage production. The music was done by Alan Menken with lyrics done by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice. The original Broadway cast was made up of Susan Egan as Belle, Terrence Mann as the Beast, Burke Moses as Gaston, Gary Beach as Lumiere and Beth Fowler as Mrs Potts.

The musical has had a hit run since its release. It had four national tours and has played in thirteen countries and one hundred and fifteen cities. In addition to its touring success it has grossed nearly one and a half billion dollars worldwide. Although being a giant financial success for Disney they decided to end the run of “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway in the Summer of 2007. The opening of “The Little Mermaid” was scheduled for later on that year and they thought two princess themed productions at the same time would cause audiences to be split and in turn cause the financial failure of both projects. Originally it was rumored that Disney planned to reopen “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway for the Holiday 2008 season, but nothing ever came of that.

Although “Beauty and the Beast” is no longer playing on Broadway it still remains an icon for it and musicals in general. It has also become a popular choice for community and high school productions. As of right now Disney has two productions on Broadway, “Mary Poppins” and “The Lion King” and is planning a national tour of “The Little Mermaid” later on this year. Although it has not been mentioned, I would not be surprised if Disney decided to bring “Beauty and the Beast” back to Broadway because of its past financial success, and iconic status for Disney and Broadway in general. If nothing else considing its history of national tours maybe it will be coming to a city near you and me. Maybe I will finally get to see “Beauty and the Beast” performed by Disney. =)

Play Review - Macbeth

For my play review I went to see William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Although I have seen this particular play before, this performance in particular stood out to me. The director, Robin Reese decided to take more artistic liberties with this performance than the director of the other performance I had seen. They choose a very simple but intense stage set up for their production. The play was performed on proscenium stage with a lipstick red backdrop with black birds flying painted on it. In addition to the bold background the center of the stage was built as a giant platform with a fountain at the front of it. The director also choose to use black water to symbolize blood instead of the normal red. In addition to the simple set, the production also offered onstage seating which I had never seen before. For the costumes the director also choose to use modern day pieces instead of clothing worn back in Shakespeare’s days. For the most part the play itself bored me, but there were some parts that I liked the way it was directed. First off I liked how the director seated the majority of the character on the stage so they could just move to the center of the stage whenever they were scripted to enter the scene. They were seated right in front of the onstage seating that was available to the audience members. Also I liked how the director scripted the scenes that contained all the witches. It would always be where the witches would surround the character they were talking to and they would do some sort of choreography whether it would be skipping, throwing an object around similar to the game of monkey in the middle, or even dancing while listening to their iPods. I mostly just liked how the director would use choreography to strengthen the visual impact of the three witches together.

The main character’s seemed to have a greater idea of what was going on whenever compared to the other cast members. In particular the actress who played Lady Macbeth, Megan Helbig really stood out to me. She was the boldest member of the cast and over exaggerated her character’s unstable state of mind. For this play in particular, I thought there was not real protagonist. The main characters were the antagonists so all the other characters were seen as the protagonists.

The makeup for the play was effective, but I do not think it did its job of tying the actors to their characters thoroughly. The makeup of the antagonist and protagonists was too similar in my opinion and was overall just too dark and plain.
Although the makeup should not be the center of attention for a character it should still add depth and interest to a performer in my opinion. The only make up in the play that I thought was effective at describing the character was the witches’ make up. They wore very heavy eye makeup, but also wore very heavy blush as well. The balance of the two helped show the audience that although they seem innocent they really are not as innocent as they seem.

The light did not impress my much either. The lighting stayed virtually the same for the entire play. Even during scenes of action or dramatic importance the lighting did not change much. The sound quality was very good though. Although there were not very many sound effects used during the play they were used effectively. Most of the sound effects were used in dramatic scenes like a death or fight sequence.

Overall I liked this performance a lot better than the other one I saw, but I still think it could be improved by added thought to visual detail, lighting, and making sure all the actors were familiar with their characters and why exactly they are important to the performance.

Concluding Statement

Throughout this semester I have grown a lot as a person. I have had to face some rough and challenging obstacles in my path, but overall I have been able to gather that although these obstacles were a major pain they helped me grow into a stronger individual. I will be honest, at the beginning of this course I thought it would be a waste of my time from what my friends had told me the class covered whenever they took it. I thought it was going to be a review class for me since I came from a theatre background where we would be learning about the theatre terms like prop, flat, down stage, gel, sight line, but it turned out to be much more. I got to learn about all different cultures and how they view theatre as art or even just an everyday part of life. From learning all these different types of theatre I also learned different perspectives on how to view art and even life in general. Although something may seem strange and unusual at first there is always something beautiful and unique about it once you take the time to break it apart into smaller pieces and examine those pieces slowly. By taking a similar theory I have been able to understand and appreciate the world around me more than what I did before. An example of this would be a rainy day for instance. Before I would have just seen a rainy day as an inconvenience, but now I can see the beauty in it. If it wasn’t for the rainy days the sunny days would not be as special. In addition to making the sunny days seem better it makes the nature around us more beautiful too. In addition to seeing the world around me like that now I can view people and art like that too. Even if I am not particularly fond of a piece of artwork there is always something about it I can relate to something I like such as common shapes, colors, textures, patterns, etc. In addition to seeing artwork like that now I see people like that too. Instead f seeing people as a quantity you either like or dislike I now break them down into smaller pieces so that I can no longer say I don’t like someone. I can figure out exactly why I did not see eye to eye with someone and I can acknowledge the differences between us, but appreciate the similarities too. Basically from learning about all the different appearances theatre can take on I have learned to appreciate and see the beauty in everything around me. I have learned that instead of labeling something as ugly, or saying I don’t like it just because of its surface value it is better to break it down into smaller pieces and then I can find everything’s inner beauty even if it is not initially evident to me.

In addition to learning a new view of the world around me I also learned a new view for the world of theatre and art in general. Before this class I never really thought about the theatre practices of other cultures and countries before. In a sense I thought these practices were a way of the past and were lost now. I ignorantly thought that all theatres were like those of the ones I visited and was involved in. Without taking this class I would not have learned exactly how theatre has evolved throughout the ages and how different cultures and time periods have their own alterations to the theatre set up.

Another interesting concept this class has made me realize is where exactly is the separation of real life and theatre. If you think about it we are all characters in a production we don’t even realize is going on. We all get up every morning and style ourselves according to how we want the world A.K.A. our audience to see us as. If you think about it we are all novice actors in our everyday lives. We pretend to get along with those we really do not care for, we act according to how we are suppose to considering our job titles, we costume ourselves to that our director’s A.K.A. employers or audience (the everyday public) see in a particular light. In a sense we are all members of the largest theatre production ever produced and many of us do not even realize it. In addition to us all being unknowing actors, there are actors who live double lives. They act as “themselves” in their everyday lives and then go to work where they are transformed into another character for the audience to view. In conclusion, this course has just made me really think about how the concepts of theatre, art and life in general are tied so very close together.