Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2014 - 18

photo by ken howard

trailing netting. However, its fastening had to be a little unorthodox. Half of the comb retained its teeth, which nestled
securely into the wig. The other side snapped to the fabric
of the latex and mesh skull.

Wig/maKEuP DEPaRtmEnt HEaD:
David zimmerman
To start out the wig and makeup design process for Carmen,
David Zimmerman began where the rest of the team began,
with Jorge Jara's sketches. The designer's watercolor technique gave a clear sense of the proportion he envisioned for
the hairstyles, and his research collages filled in the details.
"Jorge had a lot of ideas, and they are all mapped out,"
Zimmerman said. "He had it all broken down by character,
but then we'd talk about it and we'd work through the thing
together. It's a process you know. Some of it has come from
me; some of it has come from him. Some of it has come
from just watching as the costumes develop [on the performers in the fittings]." For Zimmerman such a process
is the ideal mode of collaboration: when the designer gives
very clear starting information but also wants input from
the resident hair expert. Jara gave him free rein to come up
with specifics, but Zimmerman also checked in periodically
with the designer to ensure they were on the same page. He
found the fitting photos at least as useful as the sketches.
"From sketches things change . . . from practicality, so what
they have done is taken full-body shots and made a layout
of all the chorus and all the performers so when you look
at that person actually in the costume, then you realize, 'Oh,
well, they're a little seedier than we thought; maybe they
should have some greasy, stringy long hair.'" As fittings progressed, he picked a few performers to represent the range
of looks and had them called in for longer appointments so
that they could model the wig when they were also in their
costume and show Jara the full effect.
The original wig for the Skeleton Dancer was quite
straightforward: a brunette shade compatible with the performer's own hair, styled in a bun to help support her mantilla. Except of course it took only half the time to ventilate,
compared with a conventional wig! Zimmerman made sure
that the stretch hood was left meshy in the spots where he
needed to be able to pass pins through to secure it to the
pin curls underneath the wig cap.
Jara's sketches gave a clear idea of what he wanted in
terms of makeup, but Zimmerman stressed that it was just
that-an idea-and they had to refine it from there. Zimmerman had seen a two-sided makeup done previously and
knew that the trick was to not divide the face exactly in half,
but to instead keep the skeleton a little bit hidden from view
to preserve the surprise. Although they had many planning
conversations, the first time the makeup was actually applied to the performer was at the first dress rehearsal. The
team of two dressers and one hair/makeup staff person had
eighteen minutes to complete the full-body change, which

theatre design

& technology

Jasimine Quinsier as the Skeleton Dancer in Carmen, Santa Fe Opera, 2014.
was not quite enough time during the first try. In addition to
working on speeding up the process, they had to make some
tweaks to the look. Zimmerman's notes included instructions such as "making the live woman stronger-redder
lips, bolder eye shadow," adjusting the position of the wig,
and switching to a fuller, curlier style to help hide joins in
the costume.

2014

Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2014

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