Tag: NOLA Project

Big Easy Awards

Posted on by tony in Collaboration, Mask Images, New Orleans, Shows

The Spider Queen wins Best Costumes in this year’s Big Easy Awards! 

This fantastical show featured 17 of my masks, amazing garments by costume designer Hope Bennett, and five puppet characters designed by Kenneth Thompson working in unison to bring  a new world to life! The NOLA Project earned two other accolades on The Spider Queen—Best Original Work of Theatre (playwrights James Bartelle & Alex Martinez Wallace) and Best Actress in a Play (Becca Chapman).

Playwright James Bartelle, Costume Designer Hope Bennett, Playwright Alex Martinez Wallace, Director Jon Greene, and Puppet Designer Kenneth Thompson. Photo: Jose L. Garcia, courtesy of Gambit Weekly.
Teamwork, y’all.

It takes a special group of people to collaborate well, and the amazing director, Jon Greene know it well. We first met at my booth in the Mardi Gras Market in 2016. A little less than a year later, we began talking about how to depict classic fantasy creatures and to create characters no one had ever seen.

Masks can change the way a body moves.. so if it’s not a human body… how will it be costumed? how will human actors mix with puppet actors?  Some doodles, designer discussions, and do-overs later, we were on our way.

Thanks as well to the actors who did all the (hot, sweaty) work to bring this show to life in NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

 

 

Thanks New Orleans!

 

The Mask Maker

Posted on by tony in Collaboration, Creation Process, Mask Images

I’ve often found that people aren’t quite sure what I mean when I say I’m a mask maker. Chris Hatcher of Field Guide Films gives a terrific peek behind the curtains in this video.

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The Mask Maker from Chris Hatcher on Vimeo.

The masks I’m making here are for the production of The Spider Queen by The NOLA Project, directed by Jon Greene. This original play was inspired in part by the sculpture of a spider by Louise Bourgeois  in NOMA’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden, where the play will be performed in May 2017.

spider1995
Louise Bourgeois, Spider, 1995, bronze; Besthoff Sculpture Garden, New Orleans. PHOTO: Celan Bouillet