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Opening Day!

Posted by DCA Theater on October 7, 2011 in July-December 2011 Season, The Spirit Play

Submitted by Delia Baseman, Costume Designer & Actor in The Spirit Play & Associate Artistic Director for The Strange Tree Group

Hello friendly readers!

This is Delia Baseman, Costume Designer and Actor in The Spirit Play and Associate Artistic Director of The Strange Tree Group. Today we open this beautiful little play that we have been working on since last year (when we had a wonderful experience in the DCA Incubator Series). When we began this journey last year we had no idea where this would lead. We only knew that we had a really good idea and that it had to go somewhere…

In approaching this play as a designer it was very important to me that we would stick with the rigid conventions of clothing in 1873. The contrast between the band of charlatans clothing (in the romantic medieval influenced style) and the very stiff lines of the Sitters around the séance table was of the utmost importance.  The biggest difficulty from a costuming standpoint was how to make the UV effects work. My expertise is certainly not lighting so I have had to learn a lot on the fly from our lighting designer Jordan. The final result is pretty spectacular I am told. Being both a designer and actor in the play can be frustrating sometimes because you never get to see the complete picture. This play however is something to behold and I am so excited to see the audience reaction tonight! Stay tuned for a full report!