Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2019 - 12

This article explores these challenges and draws on interviews with a
number of Björnson's colleagues and
people who work on these productions.
The journey to document their stories
included trips to Washington, D.C.,
where The Little Prince was being revived in 2017 at the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, and
to London, England, where the Maria
Björnson archive is located and where
The Phantom of the Opera still runs at
Her Majesty's Theatre.

Encouraging Others'
Creativity
The Phantom of the Opera opened at
Her Majesty's Theatre in October 1986.
For this production, Björnson reportedly spent £900,000 (Perry 1987, 81) on
the scenery alone. The show famously
boasts more than 200 costumes, 22
scene changes, and 281 candles ("Facts
and Figures"). Many people work to
maintain this design in its permanent
locations and recreate it for international and touring markets. In these labors,
the original design is honored, the implications of integrating new methods
of scenic and costume construction
must be considered, and day-to-day
maintenance and repairs must be applied carefully.
Jill Parker, currently the costume
supervisor for the London production of
The Phantom of the Opera and frequent
collaborator on other productions of the
show, met Björnson while working on
David Pountney's 1983 English National Opera production of Tchaikovsky's
Queen of Spades. Parker began working with Björnson on The Phantom of
the Opera in 1988 when it went to the
Nissay Theatre in Tokyo. Since that
time, she has gone on to work on productions in cities including Vienna,
Mexico City, Stockholm, Antwerp, Basel, and the recently closed production
in Copenhagen.
To prepare for work on the production in 1988, Parker spent weeks with
Björnson learning the show in London
by sampling fabrics and learning how
Björnson wanted each of the more
than 200 costumes to be constructed.
Interestingly, for this first international
production (outside of England and
the U.S.), all of the costumes had to be
made in England and shipped to Japan.

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

SPRING 2019

Costume design for
"The Hunters" from
The Little Prince. With
kind permission of
the Maria Björnson
Archive.

"It was quite an ordeal because,
really, they weren't used to doing musicals and although they were incredibly
hardworking, it was kind of very new to
them," she recalls. "There were no fabric shops. It was kind of a bit like being
on Mars-fantastic, but not the facilities
that we're used to in London and the
history of theatre that we're used to."
Parker clarifies that as big musicals
like The Phantom of the Opera and The
Lion King have gone around the world,
they have paved the way for these international theatre communities to enhance their traditions and become more
familiar with what it takes to produce
big-scale musicals.
On the other side of the coin is the
recently closed production of Phantom
in Copenhagen, with which Parker is
also affiliated. Unlike the early international productions from the 1980s and
1990s, now costumes already exist in
storage from previous productions. For
this revival, Parker went ahead to Copenhagen and looked through each of
the costumes in storage from previous
Danish productions. There, she gave
her approval to ones still in good condition and took note of which costumes
needed to be rebuilt. For this production, the team in London also has built
a full set of tutus for an early scene
informally referred to as "the Degas."

"We've made those here because the
Degas [tutus] need to look lovely and
fresh."
Parker also worked on the 2011
The Phantom of the Opera 25th anniversary celebration of its London premiere. This special, fully staged concert
version at the Royal Albert Hall represents yet a third approach to maintaining Björnson's vision. Parker explained
that for this production, costumes came
from all over the world, including Australia, the United States, and Germany,
for the more than 30 actors. She even
designed a new costume for the internationally famous dancer Sergei Polunin to appear in "Masquerade"; this
costume adapted the shapes and colors
of one of the "Masquerade" dummies
which appeared on the iconic sweeping
staircase of the original production.
Although she has worked on many
of the international productions of the
show, Parker's primary duties are at
Her Majesty's Theatre in London where
she currently oversees the maintenance
and construction of costumes. Recently,
the cast of The Phantom of the Opera
turned over and Parker oversaw that
transition in the wardrobe department.
While the transition was happening
over the course of some weeks, two versions of many costumes hung in closets
and sat on shelves. From one costume

Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2019

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