Market Boy

Market Boy is a semi-autobiographical story of a young boy, Brian affectionately known as Boy, who comes of age through the Thatcher years. The play is set in the late 1980s in the Romford market. The plot follows the boy growing around Romford market starting at the age of only 13 he works at a shoe stall as he enjoys the life of selling, sex, Essex banter, and life at large. The play is being performed by the year 13 acting students at the old rep theatre.

I was given the role of costume supervisor on Market Boy. The Costume Supervisor assists the Costume Designer and manages the costume department on set during pre-production and filming. They are responsible for leading the team in carrying out the design plans of the costume designer. But since there are no others in the costume department on this show I will also be carrying out the responsibilities of the costume designer and makers/ sources.

Planning and Sourcing

I went to the red BOA where all the actors take lessons and took measurements. There are 22 actors and 56 characters across 2 casts. I started by making my excel sheet and printing it off so I could highlight the 2 casts to make it a bit clearer for me to understand and use. The other costume supervisor on the other shows also assisted me so we could hopefully get them all measured in a day. We took their: Height, Bust, Waist, Hips, Inside leg, Waist to ground, Shoe size, Bra size, Top size, Bottoms size, any Allergies. The measurements went well and I could now measure any clothes that I gather to check if they would fit the actors. When measuring clothes I would measure the bust for tops and waist for trousers and skirts.

In preparation of gathering the clothes I researched the play and time period to find accurate clothes for the actors. I started by making a general moodboard for 80s clothing. I did this to give me a general base line to draw inspiration from for more singular characters and for the general ensemble parts. This really helped me get a feel or the 80s and start designing certain costumes. I then researched a few more specific costumes the director asked for such as a Maggie Thatcher suit and Vespian and Titus togas.

Once all the clothes had been gathered and measured I bagged the costumes up into costume bags for transit to the old rep. The bags made sure the costumes were safe during travel and the get in.

Pre-Production

After we had gotten into the old rep there were a few jobs I needed to do before the show. Because all the clothes were labelled and in garment bags it made it easy it sort them into their rooms. We went round all the dressing rooms labelling them first with the actors names on so we could disturb the costumes to the right room. We did the same with the accessories. We then moved all the spares down to the costume room so no one got confused. The actors weren't com till Friday so we had some time to sort some stuff out.

Some little things I had to do were taking up TMBW’s dress so it would fit under the skirt for her quick change into Tina. This made it so all the actor had to do was put on the skirt over the dress to change character. I also had to sew in different products into the fly pitcher’s coats for them to sell. One jacket needed cheese graters, one needed perfume boxes, and the last needed watches. The cheese graters the sewed a loop onto the jacket so they could be removed. The perfume we sewed elastic bands onto the coat then hot glued the boxes onto those. And the watches we hot glued elastic to fit around the actors arm instead of putting them in a coat as they looked a bit better on stage.

During the show

During the shows I was still present to assist with quick changes and organise the clothes. There were over 40 quick changes in each show some could be done just by the actors while others were so quick that the actors would need assistance. one scene in particular ranked the 10 most beautiful women on the market. which meant there had to be 10 separate women in separate costumes which we played by the few actors we had spare. There were a lot of quick changes is a short space of time meaning I had to keep the space clear to manage the ciaos. I also had the costumes layed out clearly for the actors so they can easily get changed without routing around.

Overall all the shows went well though there were a few mistakes made we overcame them to create a great show.

Evaluation

Market boy was a year 13 BOA acting show circling the life of a boy growing up in a market aspiring to one day own his own stall, all set in 80s Romford. My role on the show was Costume supervisor, handling all the costumes for 22 actors across 4 shows at the Old Rep theatre. I had to research, source, measure, and maintain the costumes throughout the production process. This included managing all the quick changes throughout the shows as well, across the 2 casts equaling to over 40 per show. During this process I had a lot of issues, mistakes, and challenges I had to overcome to create the best outcome.

One of these included “last minute buys”. After the get in and all the actors had tried on there costumes some asked for extra clothing pieces, we had not brought with us. This meant I had to do a few last-minute trips either back to Boa or to a shop to by something. This was not necessarily good for the budget as all the transactions had to be noted for financial purposes. The last-minute buys also in-convinced the schedule as multiple trips had to be made to meet the actors needs. Though I tried to limit this by going round each dressing room on the actor's arrival after the costumes had been tried on to make a list of what was needed, due to the actor's excitement not many took note of this causing them to ask for more on a later date. I believe this could have been avoided further if the following day (once everyone had settled) I went round again to follow up on the list of needs but honestly, I don’t think this would have made much of a difference. Some things I had to go buy were bike-cycle shorts to go under dresses / skirts, insoles, trench coat, neon short, etc.

Another mistake I encountered during the shows was an incident in which an actor grabbed a toga instead of the prop sheet left for them. This caused the choreography of the scene to be frown of sync and the actors to have to improve around the new shape due to the toga being a triangle and the sheet they were meant to use being a square. Though I wasn’t the one in charge of props nor the one whom grabbed the wrong sheet this was partly my fault as the toga shouldn’t have been visible for the actors to grab. I only learned of this mistake as it was in the show report and I was busy with another quick change. After this I made sure to move the togas onto hangers to avoid any other confusion and checked the actors were taking on the sheet before going onto the stage. With these put in place the mistake was not replicated.

Additionally, a third mistake made during the shows were lost costumes. Due to the speed of some of the quick changes during the show actors would throw their old costume around the room while changing to get on stage in time. This caused some costumes to go missing during the show and some arguments when the costume could not be found on time. Alternatively, some actors moved their costumes without telling me to try and make a change quicker causing costumes to get lost. In both examples I can not keep track of the costumes being moved resulting in me having to rope in the hair and make up team to help me look for the missing clothes taking them away from there roles. In the future I believe this could be avoided by a bit more communication between me and the actors to find the best way to avoid stressful and unorganised situations.

In conclusion some mistakes were made but with a bit more communication and experience these can be resolved for future shows and casts that I work with.

For more in depth analysis and information on the production process see this canva powerpoint:

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