Items tagged "Costuming"

Do you know the difference between a bustle and a buckram frame? Or what works best as an emergency hem? Some directors are blessed with a big budget and a full support staff—a choreographer, a set designer, and a costumer. But the drama teacher often becomes director, choreographer, set designer, and costumer all in one.

And a budget? What’s a budget? The Do-It-All Director’s Introduction to Costuming will give you, the director, who must do it all, the confidence and skills to costume and direct, no matter your experience or budget. This course will teach you costuming basics, budget tricks, organization, and most importantly, the art of costuming as a director.

A costume designer and a costumer are two different things. A costume designer creates pieces from the drawing board to the stage, while a costumer pulls from already existing pieces to create fully realized characters. This means that the approach is different.

In this six lesson unit students will learn the tools of a successful costumer. They will start by reflecting on their own personal style and the choices that go into that style. They’ll move on to look at versatility and adapting costume staples, creating a costuming vision, period clothing as the costumer, how to use the colour wheel as a costuming tool and everything culminates in a final project (two options).

If the costumes in a play are going to be effective, we need to be thoughtful about how we use them.

In this mini-unit, students will demonstrate their understanding costume effectiveness and address the following questions: What is the role of costume in the performance? How does color contribute? How does the style of costume affect a performance? How does costume indicate setting? Do you need costumes in a scene?

In this unit, students will explore and collaboratively take on the role of costume designers. Students will explore the elements of design, director’s concept, and the considerations for costume design. They will then apply this knowledge in a culminating project.

This unit has been designed to integrate technology into the curriculum. Students will utilize technology throughout via HyperDocs, internet research, and Google tools such as Google Drive, Google Forms, Google Slides, and Google Docs. A digital Learning Tools Introduction resource is provided for additional help in using the different tools and applications.

In this unit, students will take on the role of the costumer, which is different from a costume designer. It introduces costuming concepts in order to execute a costume. No complicated sewing is required, which is great if you don’t have the background, the access, or the resources to have a class of students create costumes.

Instead of making costumes from scratch, as a designer would, students will create costumes from stock, borrowed items, or low-cost finds. They will take finished products and adapt them into what they need to create the right atmosphere.

In order to help with their adaptations, students will try different distressing techniques and learn three SIMPLE stitches that they’ll be able to use over and over again. It’s a valuable tech theatre skill to teach students how to execute on costumes when you (and they) don’t sew!

Costumes are a visual medium and so is theatre. A theatrical vision is incomplete without costuming. In this Lesson Plan, students will answer questions in order to develop a costuming vision for a show.

Costuming with colour is a great way to visualize theme and mood. How do different colours make you feel? What colours are associated with different moods? Can colour be used to identify a group? Students will first assess character types and use the colour wheel to create a costume look. Their assignment for the lesson is to assign colours to different groups in a play based on relationship, mood, and era.

In this ELP students read and respond to an article about how costume items affect characters and how they move on stage. They will demonstrate
their comprehension by creating a summary for new actors and completing a Reflection.

Students will read an article about how costume items affect their character and their physical movements onstage. Then will then apply their knowledge by preparing a brief monologue (20-30 seconds in length) and practicing it three times, each time using a different costume item. Students will then perform their monologue using one of the items they worked with. Students will become aware of the challenges that costumes can cause while performing onstage. Afterwards, students will complete a Reflection.

In this real world application lesson students view videos of a theatre profession, complete viewing quizzes, and hand in a Reflection.

The objective of this lesson is for students to take on a theatre production role and explore a real-world challenge. Students are tasked to come up with an interesting, unique costume design concept for a show, while at the same time being challenged to stay within a budget of only $50.

These tools include a costume list and plot samples and templates.

How do you teach tech, or use tech in your productions when you don’t have the expertise or the equipment? How do you make it work? How do you problem solve? Topics include Lighting, Set Design, Costumes, and Sound.

The video shares a costume design idea executed using simple materials. The accompanying activity has students take ordinary materials and transform them into a crown.

This Toolkit provides a variety of resource articles, tips, slide decks, videos, and handouts for you, the do-it-all drama teacher, who has to both direct and put together the costumes for a show.
Further to that, perhaps you don’t have a lot of costuming experience and don’t have an extensive costume budget, but want to add this skill to your productions. Where do you start? Right here! You don’t have to know how to sew. You don’t have to know how to draw. You don’t have to create your costumes from scratch. This resource takes you from pre-rehearsal analysis right through to post-production strike. Enjoy!