“The Traveler” by McKenzie Krempa

Shaken & Stirred: New Choreographers Concert

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2009

This was my first design work at the University of North Texas and my first realized dance design. The concept was that Alek (the dancer in the red coat) was a traveler in a snow globe. At first it’s all fun and games and she has fun in the snow, which is sometimes played by the other dancers. But then the snowglobe gets shaken and Alek finds that it’s not as fun as she thought. As she takes off her winter clothes she becomes part of the snowglobe, just like the other dancers have done before her.

Bunraku and Cooperation: the Emotional Reflection of Life

Teaching Children with Creative Drama

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2009

This was our second teaching project for Creative Drama. This time we had to create a workshop about theatre history or playwriting. My partner, Edgar, and I decided to create a workshop about the traditional art of Bunraku, Japanese puppet theatre. For the workshop we gave an introduction to Bunraku history and some interesting facts. Then we showed a clip of the climactic scene from “Love Suicides at Amijima” by Chikamatsu and read the same scene from the script. Then we split the class into groups of three and gave them materials to create a three foot puppet. The groups then had to use the puppet to express emotions with three people controling the puppet. The next week we gave the same workshop to a group of non-theatre majors in one of the dorms on campus and it turned out very well.

Workshop plans & Self-Evaluation:

Workshop Plan
Self-Evaluation Part I
Self-Evaluation Part II

Workshop Plan

Bunraku and Cooperation: the Emotional Reflection of Life

By Edgar Estrada and Jessica Gafford

This workshop is an introduction to Japanese puppet theatre, Bunraku, and is meant for 7^th and 8^th graders.

By the end of the period, the students will be divided into groups of two or three. Each group will need: traditional Japanese Music (used during the Drama exercise and also slightly in the Power Point presentation), one broomstick, one long piece of cloth (at least 2’ x 3’ in different colors for variety), stapler, newspapers, rubber bands, rope/twine, scissors, tape, and plastic and paper bags. The teacher will need sheets of paper with a profile outline drawn on them, a copy of Love Suicides at Amijima by Chikamatsu Monzaemon with a few sections copied for the class to read out loud.

Engagement

We will be engaging the participants in the drama by showing a Power Point with a short history of Bunraku and puppets throughout history.

Choosing a Focus

(1) What is the specific focus of your group?

How to convey emotions through puppets with the collaboration of other puppeteers

(2) Goals, objectives, and standards you want to emphasize

Pantomime, cooperation, and character development

TEKS:

(b) Basic Understandings

(3) Historical/Cultural Heritage. Through participating in theatrical experiences, students increase their understanding of heritage and traditions, which helps them to function in a worldwide society.

(c) Knowledge and Skills and Performance Descriptions

(1) The student develops concepts about self, human relationships, and the environment, using elements of drama and conventions of theatre.

(C) employs stage movement and pantomime consistently to express thoughts, feelings, and action

(2) The student interprets characters, using the voice and body expressively, and creates dramatizations

(C) portrays believable characters when applying acting concepts, skills, and techniques

Pre-Drama

(1) We chose Love Suicides at Amijima by Chikamatsu Monzaemon because it is characteristic of Bunraku theatre and has a recognizable theme in the young lovers who can’t be together.

(2) We will show a clip from a production of this production using puppets to give the participants an idea of how the puppets move. Then we will have the participants read sections of the play aloud and then have the groups create scenes based on traditional Bunraku.

(3) Exploring the Story/Source

Introduction:

- We will present a Power Point with some historical information and pictures as an intro to Bunraku

- We will show different types of puppets throughout history to show how Bunraku has grown as a form of entertainment and as an art form

- Then we will have the participants read a few sections from Love Suicides at Amijima by Chikamatsu Monzaemon to get the participants ready to act out the scenes

- Edgar and I will show the climactic scene in Love Suicides so that the participants are familiar with the scene and can see how Bunraku puppets move

Warm-up: Then Edgar and I will lead a game in which the students have to move as puppets

- The group will have a short discussion about how puppets move and express emotions

- The students divide in two and stand in two lines facing each other

- Edgar and I will call out different emotions that the two lines will have to portray that emotion with only their bodies and without facial expressions (like a puppet)

Drama/Improvisation: The participants will present a short scene from Love Suicides using puppets that they have created

- The participants will divide into groups of two or three and each group will be given a broomstick and a piece of fabric along with other puppet building materials

- The groups will be given 5-7 min to create a puppet and 3-5 min to work with the puppet to get a hang of moving with it as a group

- One member of the group should work with the head and right arm, one should work with the left arm, and one should work with the legs

- Each group will create a scene for their puppet to act out that portrays emotions

- They will be given 3-5 min to prepare their scenes to be performed in front of the group

Reflection:

- Each participant will be given a piece of paper with a profile outline drawn on it

- They will write words describing their experience using the puppets and answer the questions Edgar and I give them

- How hard was it to make your puppet express emotion? What were some of the challenges of working with two other people to make the puppet “act”? How has the tradition of Bunraku translate in the US?

- The participants can then volunteer words, phrases, or sentences from their papers

Self evaluation:

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Self-Evaluation Part I

The workshop that Edgar and I created, I felt, turned out very well. Fortunately, Edgar and I worked well together and we tossed out many good ideas on how to show Bunraku in a historical context. For us, the problem was not coming up with the drama sessions, it was narrowing them down to the best sessions for the workshop. I felt that we gave a lot of historical information, as well as media example, to really demonstrate the effect that this traditional theatre has had in contemporary theatre. Edgar was in charge of putting together the PowerPoint and the music and I think this really got the class in the mindset needed to work with the puppets we would build later. The video really gave the class a sense of how the puppets move with the puppeteers. Then the segment of the play that was read in the class really showed the beauty of “Love Suicides at Amijima” and why Chikamatsu is considered “the Shakepeare of Japan”. The pre-drama, with the participants acting like puppets, turned out very well but next time we need to have a pre-written list of emotions to call out because I had a hard time thinking of them on the spot. But overall the pre-drama turned out very well and I was excited that the participants really committed to our game. I hope that the puppet making exercise was fun for the participants because all the puppets turned out so well with the small amount of time they were given to build them. I was quite impressed with the ways each group chose to make the puppets move and emote. As for the reflection segment of the workshop, it seemed that the participants really understood what Edgar and I were trying to get across to them, but also had a lot of fun doing it.

Edgar and I will be doing this workshop again on April 28^th at my dorm, so we will have the opportunity to try some of these changes next time. One of the problems we had was the time constraint put on the participants to build their puppets. We gave the class a little more time than we had planned originally, but I think we will give them even more time when we do it again. As I stated earlier, I will make a list of emotions to yell during the pre-drama so that I can choose harder emotions for the class to act out. I think the rest of the workshop went well. Of course, being able to dedicate a full class period on the history of Bunraku and the play, and a full period for the puppets would be ideal, but I think overall our workshop made the most of the time we had with the results that Edgar and I were trying to extract.

The biggest goal of this workshop was to see Bunraku as more than a puppet show and getting to make puppets. Obviously, we used the idea of a puppet show to emphasize the years of practice and cooperation needed to perfect this art form, but we wanted to show the art behind the puppet show. I think the PowerPoint, the video and the play, and the pre-drama game were all needed to really understand the idea we were trying to get across. The puppets were meant to give the participants something fun to do as well as the experience of working together to make a single puppet move. This isn’t an easy task, but I think it gave the class a real insight into the art that the puppeteer must bring to the show.

I was surprised at how easily the class grasped the concepts and ideas we were trying to get across and it reinforced the decision we made to make the workshop for middle school students. I think this workshop, with certain modifications, could be used for elementary children to learn cooperation with others. This is also an introduction to how cooperation is needed to produce an effective play. I’m hoping that when Edgar and I host this workshop for non-theatre majors, they will take away some theatre history as well as the need for cooperation in different aspects of life.

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Self-Evaluation Part II

Edgar and I chose to conduct our workshop on Bunraku puppets with non-theatre majors at my dormitory on campus. We followed the same outline and format that we used during class with only a few very minor details. We started off with a PowerPoint on Bunraku history and reading a scene from “Love Suicides at Amijima” by Chikamatsu and watching the scene played by professional puppeteers. After that we did a little pre-drama exercise by portraying emotions with the body and without the face. Then we had the participants build puppets and move them to portray an emotion. We finished with some reflection questions that the participants could answer. There were a lot fewer participants than I had expected, and only seven chose to fully participate. Unfortunately, the participants did not seem as willing or excited to participate I had hoped they would be. One even fell asleep during the workshop. They were not enthusiastic about the games, especially the small acting game, only passably interested in the history and even less interested in the script reading and the film. Although they did seem to moderately commit to the acting exercise, I don’t think they really wanted to do the activity, but felt obliged because no one else wanted to do it. However, they did seem to enjoy making the puppets, but we only had enough participants for two groups. They immediately began to think up ways to form the different parts of the body. Edgar and I tried to give them ideas but they didn’t seem to take much notice. One group finished building their puppet quite quickly so we had to cut the second group’s puppet making time. They didn’t seem to really enjoy moving the puppets, just making them. They were very interactive during the reflection part of the workshop and all of them had something to say. Afterwards, Edgar and I got a lot of praise and thank yous from the participants. It was a good workshop that turned out well, but it was not an ideal environment for theatre, in my opinion.

I was really nervous about the session the whole day. I wasn’t sure what to expect at all. At least in the classroom I know that we will have support, but at the dorm I felt as if we were all alone and anything could happen. Getting people walking through the lobby to stop and join was one of the hardest things about the situation. The noise in the lobby was also hard to talk over. Luckily, we only had to make a few changes for this workshop. For instance, I had to turn Edgar’s PowerPoint into a DVD movie because the dorm was not equipped with a projector. This was not too hard and actually turned out really well. We also had to encourage the second group to finish quickly because the first group was done before the second group and we didn’t want to keep them waiting for very long. There wasn’t much of a discipline problem with the groups. I think the wanted to help make the workshop go smoothly, even if they weren’t really interested in the topic. Edgar and I appreciated it and I feel the workshop could have gone much worse.

I learned that you can’t do theatre in any environment and expect it to be amazing. It takes planning and work and a little bit of thinking on your feet. If I had to do it again I would not have the workshop in the lobby, where it is loud and people are walking through all the time. I would do it in a room with a door to keep out distractions. I think we did get across the ideas we were trying to show, like the history of Bunraku and the level of commitment needed to make the puppets beautiful. Edgar and I work very well together and I hope to work with him again in the future.

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The Rocky Horror Show by Richard O’Brien

Directed by Bob Hess

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2009

This was my first assistant costume designer position and I was very excited to be working on one of my favorite scripts ever. I have never worked on a production this big in any capacity. It was such a huge endeavor, there were two costume designer and three assistants. Nearly thirty members of the cast and over two hundred costumes almost proved to be too much, but we somehow managed to pull it off and produce a show that sold more tickets than any other show at the University of North Texas.

Dressing the Part by Nell Millard and Jessica Gafford

Teaching Children with Creative Drama

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2009

This was the first workshop I have ever created. The project was to create a workshop plan about acting or technical theatre/design and teach it to the class. My partner and I chose to do a workshop on costume design for 5th graders. The idea was that we would give the participants props and they would make a character based on that prop, then we would give them pieces of fabric to design a costume for that character. The session turned out extremely well and the class seemed to really enjoy it.

Workshop plans & Self-Evaluation:
Workshop Plans
Self-Evaluation

Workshop Plans

Dressing the Part: a Workshop on Costumes by Jessica Gafford and Nell Millard

This is an introduction to costumes – a character around a costumes, research, fabric exercise – creating a costume around a character

Engagement Strategies:

-Props, We are hoping that props will make everyone excited about participating. To begin and get everyone ready and excited, we will demonstrate our first exercise. Jessica and I will each put on a prop and ask the workshop participants to think of some words that might describe someone who would wear that prop.

What is the specific focus of your workshop?

- What is the function of costume?

Goals, objectives, and standards you want to emphasize:

- Characterization, design, creativity, cooperation, trust and improvisation

-TEKS Objectives:

117.34. Theatre, Grade 6

(b) Basic Understandings:

2. Creative expression/performance, central to the making of theatre, develop life skills. Through a variety of theatrical experiences, students communicate in a dramatic form, make artistic choices, solve problems, build positive self-concepts, and relate impersonally.

(c) Knowledge and skills and performance descriptions

3. The student applies design, directing, and theatre production concepts and skills. Following are performance descriptions. The student:

(A) defines character, environment, action, and theme, using props, costumes, and visual elements collaboratively and safely

(C) plans brief dramatizations collaboratively

(D) interacts cooperatively with others in brief dramatizations

What will you use as a touchstone or springboard into the workshop?

- Costume Design by Barbara and Cletus Anderson

In what way will you use the material?

- We will use this text in order to give a brief introduction of costumes in order for the workshop attendees to better understand our costuming activities

How will you share, manage or convey this material?

PowerPoint presentation and information packet as well as access to the resources

Describe in detail the stories or exercises you will use to present the material:

¨ Introduction:

o What is costume?

§ Anything worn on stage is a costume

§ A costume is technically defined as dress in general, including underpinnings, accessories, and hairdressing and makeup

o What is the primary function of a costume?

§ To enhance the characterization of a role

o What is the purpose of costume design?

§ To develop the feeling of a character portrayed in a costume

o The characters in a presentation may be defined largely by their garments

o History of costume

§ Greeks and Romans used character masks to easily allow the audience to identify the stock characters in tragedies and comedies (before 525 B.C.)

§ Costuming grew in importance as drama slowly re-emerged in Western Europe at the end of the early Middle Ages (roughly A.D. 475-1000)

§ It wasn’t until the 19^th century that desire for historical accuracy began to grow

¨ Warm-up Object Exercise: building a character around a costume

o Objects: hats, glasses, gloves, etc. No clothing.

o We will split up the class into teams of two

o Each group will be given two objects and a piece of paper and a pencil

o They can either split the objects up or use them with one person, but they must all be used

o They will use their objects to create a character around the objects

o They will be given two minutes to write down the characteristics of a character wearing or using those objects

o They will then present their characteristics to the class

o They will then be given three minutes to create a scene

o They will then present their short scenes for the class

¨ 2^nd exercise: building a costume around a character

o Each group will be given a piece of fabric and safety pins

§ Safety lesson on using safety pins, etc.

o They will then have ten minutes to build a costume around the character they had previously created

o Then they will repeat their scene wearing the costume

¨ Final discussion

o Discuss how the costume helped accentuate characterization

o If you could make a costume with unending resources (time, money, etc.) what would that costume look like?

What activities, games, exercises, or challenges can I add that will enhance their understanding of the situation?

- Costume design exercise where the workshop attendees have to use the words they wrote down to embody their characters in their skits. The people watching should be able to tell what their words are.

Reflection:

- Final discussion

Discuss how the costume helped accentuate characterization.

If you could make a costume with unending resources (time, money, etc.) what would that costume look like?

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Self-Evaluation

There were many things that went well during our session. I was very happy with the dedication the participants put into creating characters and costumes. I was expecting a lot of confusion with the costume design process but everyone seemed to understand exactly what Nell and I were trying to get them to do. There were also really great scenes developed from the props and the characteristics of the characters really showed though. I was also very pleased with the final discussion. The general consensus seemed to be that everyone understood the purpose of costume and how it affects character.

If I had to do the session again I would keep most of it the same. I think I would want more time for everything, like looking at the resources, but if I couldn’t do that I would split the session into two days; the first day for general history, design elements, and resource material, and the second day for the props and costume activities. Overall, though, I wouldn’t change much. I think the session was well structured and built on itself.

I think the participants really discovered the role that costumes play while acting. Most of them are actors and have noticed the changes in characteristics after adding costume, but very few have had the chance to choose the costume for their character to enhance certain aspects that they felt embodied their character most. For instance, Dr. Garcia and Loni made the boat captain a sash to emphasize the captain’s authority. Edgar and Jackie gave the “whore” very sexy clothes to emphasize her money makers and the attributes a whore would want to show off.

I’ve learned that costume design could easily be taught to almost any age group. I always thought that costume construction and design were meant for the older, more mature students in middle school and beyond, but after seeing the participants in this session easily grasp the concepts and activities planed, I can see this session being given to elementary students and maybe even special needs children with only minor changes. The ideas and concepts of the session that Nell and I put together are so simple that they could easily be adjusted to work for any age group and experience level. I feel that’s the strongest attribute to our session.

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Costume III: Design

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2008

This was our last project of the semester in Costume III and it’s possibly my most favorite. This project focused on designing costumes for the dance The Rite of Spring which is a dance about nature and sacrifice. I chose to focus on the nature aspect of the dance and started by putting together some beautiful pictures of colorful flowers and insects. I really wanted to go with something simple and stick to dance wear so I designated how many men and women were in the dance.  The opposing tribes of men dance around the stage in a quasi-fighting ritual in colorful shirts and black dance pants. The witch comes in to bless the earth and she is wearing black pants with a long flowing coat that has gotten its pattern from a caterpillar  from my collage. The maidens start to dance as the virgins that might be chosen for the sacrifice. Their costumes are brightly colored hooded shirts with matching tie-on skirts and black capri pants.Finally, the girl in pink is chosen and the other maidens dress her in her ritual clothing which is actually a dress that is revealed when the tie on skirt is taken off.  The maidens sink to the floor and are possessed by the spirits of the ancestors. To reveal this change, the maidens remove the tie-on skirts and pull on the hood to become the ancestors. The same girl who was the witch earlier has now added a beard and flipped her coat inside out to reveal a new pattern taken from a beautiful flower in my collage. Now this dancer is the sage who will bless the chosen one and sacrifice her so that spring will come. As you can see, all the colors and color combination were pulled from the collage I put together. It was interesting designing dance clothes, but I would love to be able to do this production some time.

Costume III: Design

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2008

This is another project for Costume III. We had to take the story of Medea and set it in any context we chose. I decided to set the story in America in 1640, one year before England declared witchcraft a capital crime. I did this because I wanted to focus on the theme of paranoia and fear that runs through the play, so I made Medea a black princess from Africa who was also a witch in her country. This plays on the idea of the strange sex and race. For a more detailed analysis of my design, read

For me, Medea is about a woman who is wronged by the man she loves. I think the conflict between Medea and Jason is very important and to show this I want to set the play in America in 1640, which is one year before English law declared witchcraft a capital crime. I feel that there are parallels between the fear and paranoia that the American Puritans felt about witches and the fear and paranoia that Creon feels about Medea, who also happens to be a witch. I also feel that the expectations and constraints put on Puritan women at the time parallels the constraints that Medea is put under as a woman and a foreigner.

In order to set this play in 1641 America, there needs to be a bit of back story to set it up and a few minor changes to the story. Jason was an English soldier who went to Africa to look for gold. The African princess, Medea, falls in love with Jason and helps him in exchange for marrying him. They get married in Africa and Jason takes Medea to England. Jason is told be a noble to go to America to live and take care of the noble’s interests in Massachusetts. Jason and Medea move to America where they have two sons. Medea is upset to learn that Jason is engaged to the Magistrate Creon’s daughter. Jason claims it is for the family’s good but he is only interested in gaining power. Creon tries to banish Medea but he is scared because Creon believes Medea’s foreignness means she is a witch. Jason claims their marriage was not real because it was made in Africa under false gods. Medea has tried very hard to fit into this strange world because she loves Jason so much, but when he leaves her, the African witch and her emotions take over and she vows revenge. Medea talks to a Magistrate from a neighboring town, Aegeus, who agrees to help her if she can give him children. With that settled, she returns to her revenge, starting with Creon’s daughter. Medea uses her knowledge of African witchcraft to poison a dress that she gives to the other woman. Medea then decides to kill her two sons to hurt Jason even more. When Jason comes to kill her for the death of his new bride, Medea conjures up a golden fire, and says she will leave and bury children. When she jumps into the fire, she disappears along with her children and Jason is left with his grief.

Medea’s foreignness is addressed by her ethnicity. An African woman would strike fear into a Puritan society, but Jason’s protection would keep her from being thrown out. It seems to work until Jason decides to marry Creon’s daughter and Medea’s protection is taken away. Medea’s left with only a handful of sympathizers. The rest of the town is too terrified of her foreignness to come near her. The nurse, tutor and handmaids are from Medea’s homeland and have followed Medea to take care of her. The chorus of women are townswomen that sympathize with Medea’s situation because they want more rights for women and are considered rebels. As Magistrate of the town, Creon would have a lot of pull over the townspeople and Jason. This is why Jason’s marriage to Creon’s daughter is such a big political step for Jason. Aegeus is on the same political level as Creon so he is also a magistrate from another town. Creon has the power to throw Medea out and Aegeus has the power to protect her. Medea’s sons are a mixed race which is why Creon also wants them to leave. However, they have a much lighter skin tone than Medea and her countrymen which is why Jason eventually agrees to let them stay. The color of skin is a big element of the play’s conflict. Medea’s witchcraft is also a big element in the play. I chose 1640 to suggest that Medea was part of the reason the law came to pass. If I had set it after 1641 then she would have been hanged as a witch. By setting the play before that the play still has all the elements of fear and paranoia without the law behind the Magistrate to kill Medea. The golden fire is meant to replace the golden chariot in Euripides’ original work. There is a magical element to a fire created from no where and it also brings the connotations of burning at the stake. Because Medea doesn’t die in the fire it shows that she has gone somewhere safe with her children’s bodies, but the visual element to a huge golden fire is enough to create a dramatic ending.

Posted in 2008 Tagged: 2008, costume, design, renderings, unt ]]> http://jmgafford.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/medea/feed/ 0 jmgafford Medea Collage Medea Jason Chorus Nurse http://jmgafford.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/little-foxes/ http://jmgafford.wordpress.com/2009/04/26/little-foxes/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:14:30 +0000 jgafford http://jmgafford.wordpress.com/?p=572 ]]>

Costume III: Design

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2008

This was another project for Costume III in which we had to design costumes for the characters in Lillian Hellman’s Little Foxes. The costumes I designed for them are period costumes with color associations between the couples. For instance, Oscar and Birdie are wearing shades of brown, and Alexandra and Leo are wearing shades of grey. However, I tried to focus more on my presentation of the renderings for this project. As you can see in the pictures I put the costume for the first act on the form of a body with the other acts to the side, almost like paper doll costumes. This conserved paper as well as giving an interesting look to the renderings.

Costume III: Costume Design

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2008

As one of our projects in Costume III we had to pick a character whose costume creates a problem for the designer. I chose Lady Nijo from Top Girls by Caryl Churchill because she was a concubine in the Japanese Feudal era, but was exiled and became a Buddhist nun. I struggled with the idea of making her costume full of layers and layers of kimonos, and I even sketched a rendering. However, after studying the text I realized that Churchill put the character of Lady Nijo in the play because she gained strength after becoming a nun and she wanted to give advice to Marlene on how to become the woman she was meant to be. I discovered that Buddhist monks and nuns wore the same clothing and shaved their heads to eliminate vanity from their lives, so I put Lady Nijo in the Buddhist robes of the time with a green cloth (the color of nature), and a design featuring the five colors of the Buddhist flag.

Costume III: Design

University of North Texas, Denton, TX 2008

This was one of the first design projects we did in Costume III.

1. Find an object and draw sketches of it from different perspectives.

2. Paint the object from one of the perspectives.

3. Design an abstraction of the object.

4. Design a showgirl costume that is a literal representation of that object.

5. Chose a charcter from a play that has the same characteristics as the object and design a costume for that character with the object as an influence.

As you can see I chose some leaves on campus that had started to fade into yellows and reds. The leaf looked as though it were on fire and that really drew me to it. The abstraction of the leaf was the hardest for me. I came up with many ideas that were too literal until I finally sat down and started painting. The second painting is what came out. The show girl is obviously the leaf with a sassy collar. For the character I chose Mosca from Volpone because he “bends with the tide” like a leaf does in air, but he also has a little more going on to him that the other characters don’t expect, just like the red tips. The hardest part about designing Mosca’s costume was how to make it represent the leaf as well as the pest that Mosca is suppose to be in the play. To reach this end, I used the colors of the leaf in Mosca’s vest, pantaloons, and tights, while giving him a cape that is remeniscent of fly wings and rosettes on his hat to look like fly eyes.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Directed by Joey Folsom

Sundown Collaborative Theatre, Denton, TX 2008

I was asked by Sundown Collaborative Theatre to design the costumes for their biggest production to date. There were 13 cast members playing 45 roles. I decided that the darker the character, the more black s/he would wear. The governor and the two raped women would wear white to represent their purity and good-hearted nature. The two doctors would wear red because they were conducting unethical experiments on Alex, until Dr. Branom realizes what they are doing and she loses the red. The orange colors were meant to show the transformation of Alex so he wears the orange tie in the show and the orange blanket when P. Alexander finds him on the street. The hardest part about this production was finding the costumes in sizes and styles that were appropriate. I found most of the costumes in thrift stores around Denton and some of them were the actors’ clothing. It was rough but it was the most satisfying thing I have ever worked on.