In the woods
*Featured as part of the 2023 USITT/USA Prague Quadrennial Emerging Artist Exhibit
A Paper Project Based on a Paper Project
Designs for Characters from Into the Woods
Book by James Lapine, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Costume Design and Construction by Christina Beam
Photography by Ben Tobin
Characters:
Snow White
The Witch
Jack and Milky White
Little Red Riding Hood
Sleeping Beauty
Prince Charming
The Stepsisters
Hansel, Gretel and the Witch
The Swan Maiden
The Fairy Godmother
Cinderella
Rapunzel
Alice and the Queen of Hearts
About the Project:
I first designed these costumes for a paper project in grad school. I wanted the costuming to mirror the characters’ transformations as they veer away from their original stories and become real people. Each character would start the show in a costume that looks like it’s made from the pages of their storybook, and then throughout the course of the show the costume would come apart and transform into a more realistic garment—historically accurate and made from fabric.
I have always thought it would be a fun and interesting challenge to construct the storybook page costumes, either making them from paper, or making them look like they were made of paper. When covid-19 struck and all of my theater work was abruptly put on hold, I found myself with more free time than I was comfortable with, and a sense of loss for my creative work. I teamed up with film-maker and photographer, Ben Tobin, who was also missing his work, and we decided to do a series of photoshoots featuring the fairy tale characters in their storybook page costumes.
The shoots became less about the characters as depicted specifically in Into the Woods, and more about our own interpretations of the characters across their different iterations, and we even ended up adding characters who do not appear in the musical. The photography medium gave me the ability to use more paper in the construction rather than simulating paper for stage, since the costumes only needed to hold up for the photoshoot rather than the run of a show, and the performers didn’t need to be as mobile. The costumes were primarily constructed with a combination of cardstock, copy paper, and tyvek, with canvas interlinings to provide support for corsets and doublets. The shoots began in Fall 2020 while we were still stuck in the covid woods and gave me a creative light in the darkness. We’ve had so much fun doing them that the number of characters keeps growing and the shoots have continued over the past few years; we have four characters left to do and we’re hoping to finish the series this spring and summer. The costumes were featured as part of the Emerging Artist Exhibit at the USITT conference in March and again at the 2023 Prague Quadrennial in June.
RENDERINGS
