From Page to Stage: Professor

This week, as many people start the new academic year I thought that I would look back at the scholarly character of the Professor from Tolstoy’s The Fruits of Enlightenment, played by the talented Katelyn Kennedy. This was one of my favourite characters that I’ve had the pleasure to design as they are so eccentric and outlandish I was able to be as extravagant as possible in developing the character’s look.

I loved the character of the Professor and found it a really interesting one to explore design-wise. The Professor is clearly a person who teaches and studies the paranormal and with the direction of farce that Robert Carson, the director, wanted to take the play it was key for this character to be over the top and a little stereotypical looks-wise. I decided to look into the outfit of a traditional fortune teller, looking at Sybil Trelawny in Harry Potter (designed by Jany Temime) among other illustrations, such as those found in Lemony Snicket’s The Carnivorous Carnival and other images of fortune tellers I found online. On top of this however, I still wanted the Professor to fit in with the high fashion world of the richer characters that also featured in the play. To bring in this high fashion element I looked to style icon and designer, Iris Apfel, whose extravagant dress sense has been celebrated across the world of fashion. A particular silver outfit of hers I really connected to the Professor and I thought it would work really well for the show if it was transferred into a bolder colour.

On top of the style of Apfel, I also found a wonderful piece of inspiration from a Dolce& Gabanna runway that was a beautiful, intricately patterned and boldly coloured overcoat with an excessive headpiece. This idea of a headpiece or turban also became a key part of the design, both from the fashion aspect from Dolce& Gabanna as well as bringing in the suggestion of ‘fortune teller’ that I wanted to give to the audience.

Colour-wise, as I said above, I wanted the Professor to fit in with the rest of the bourgeois characters, so I wanted her to be in a bold colour. I mostly looked into purple, this is a colour often associated with mysticism as well as having the potential to be a big statement colour that would really stand out against the white of the set, designed by Melissa Lim. I had an idea of looking into more teal or green colour palettes for the character, however, I think along with purple not being particularly present among other characters as well as the association the colour has with the mystical I went for purple as the main colour for the Professor.

I again developed the make-up look with Angie Peña-Arenas. I loved the idea of covering eyebrows with make-up as I think it can really change the face and make someone look completely different. I really wanted to exaggerate the eyes and bring in more purple with the make-up look. After looking at some high fashion make-up ideas we decided on an extremely exaggerated eye shadow, which from the initial design, Katelyn, when applying it during the shows, exaggerated further which I loved, as well as thick, purple contouring on the cheeks to add to the out of the box make-up. As the show developed and Robert introduced a UV light to the climatic séance scene we really wanted to include some UV face paint into the make-up designs.

To add this to the Professor we chose the pink UV colour and mixed this in with the purples that were already on the make-up, which showed up really well in the UV light.

With finding the Professor’s costume, we found some great items in the Maddermarket Theatre costume store, a floaty purple top, a great, stylish jacket and a long skirt, all purples. To add to this I was able to provide a light purple scarf that worked really well for the turban and we bought a pair of bright purple tights. Katelyn was able to provide a great pair of shoes that worked perfectly. Finally, I completed the look with a pair of fake round glasses that I already had to add in an extra touch of Iris Apfel. To further her influence, I was able to find a plethora of purple beads and jewellery in some charity shops and in the UEA costume store.

I was really pleased with how the costume came out, I think it really brought across the idea of the eccentric, mystical Professor. On top of this, Katelyn did an incredible comic performance that had the audience in stitches the entire time she was onstage, which I think the costume complemented well.