EXIT PURSUED BY A BEAR - Phoenix G- Design

Exit, pursued by a bear

Written by Lauren Gunderson,
Directed by Sierra Packard

My first official costume design was for the lovely play, Exit, Pursued by a Bear. This was for our spring festival held in the Mesa Experimental Theatre. This is our blackbox theatre arranged so that the audience was given an immersive experience with the play. I had to keep this in mind as one doesn’t design for an intimate venue as they would a proscenium or even just a thrust. We were going to have moments all throughout the space, and as such I wanted to keep the design concepts consistent throughout the play.

Character renderings/sketches

After reading through the play a few times, and getting a good idea for each of the characters I started with some sketches loosely based around the physique of the actors.

From there I went into what is said by the author- what is canonically apart of the wardrobe. For instance Simon is in the bulldogs cheerleader uniform, and switches into sweatpants.

Then I went into what seems fitting for these characters. These sketches are a basic ideation of what I had in mind for them.

character analysis

Following the sketches I dug deeper into what makes these characters who they are, and even then I dug deeper about who they are. I saw a creative vein of essence behind each of the characters (maybe not so much with kyle (at first)). I looked at the characters as who they would be as an archetype, and then what would a modern version of them be. Then for inspirational reference I used a method I was taught in my classes on design. To conceptualize the character as a plant, a food, a piece of architecture, an animal, and a piece of furniture. This though odd can give us an idea of some metaphorical meanings behind the characters and what they stand for.

Nan Carter

One of my biggest inspirations for Nan is the blossoming empath. A common archetype in today’s society because a lot of people are coming to terms with healing from trauma caused by those who they love. A major element I wanted to incorporate with her costume was the sort of young deer energy. As such part of the look I was giving her was a sort of conservative branching into the more fashionably progressive styling. Still not quite getting it, but with positive supportive friends who are more fashionably versed she’d be making the same styles others wish to be. Another element I wanted to include was the fact that she was a veterinarian. as such she’d be wearing part of her uniform after work, but wanting to try something more fashionable as she’s slowly on the path to becoming her truest self.

Kyle Carter

As you can see in my research Kyle wasn’t my favorite character. I had experience with trauma from narcissistic people, and as such I let my personal judgment get in the way of that.

I didn’t let Kyle grow on me until I was actually able to see rehearsals and see the life that was being breathed into the character. I tried to think of him as just the average cisgendered heterosexual conservative white man. But after some time I could see even Kyle Carter was a human too. As such he was flawed- yes majorly, but still he was human. He regretted his actions, and even though it took him a very, very long time to come to that but he eventually came around to it. Yes in a moment of poetic justice, but he proved his humanity in the end.

Simon Beaufort

Simon was one of my favorite characters, not just because I can relate to the gay best friend trope, but I also enjoyed how straight forward his costume got to be. It is stated what he wears as such the hardest part about it was getting the right thing.

However even after looking in all the right places we had to do with finding a similar cheer uniform, and I hand carved and sewed a felt patch.

Most of the work for simon went into the makeup, and his accessories. We had him seated in the audience and gave him some quick rigged clothes to change out of, and when he reached the stage he gave everyone a flourish (with a nice pair of tear away pants), to reveal the top and the skirt. Moreover we had a final look that was only conceptualized at the end of the main rehearsals. Ill get into the second looks for the main three in a later segment.

Sweet Heart

I lied before, both Sweet Heart and Simon are tied for my favorite characters. I know part of the joke with Sweet Heart’s character is the fact that even if she isn’t insanely smart, she has a lot of heart. I always thought of her as being smart, but really just playing dumb cause she knows how messed up the world is. Because the patriarchy has such a choke hold on the world as we know it she knows the best way to handle living in it is to hide that she knows more than she lets on, to play the part like some harlequin entertaining their ideas of being in charge- until the day comes that she can show that she can outsmart any man.

Moreover I loved putting her costume together. Everyone in our department has always wanted to be able to put on our stock of thigh high boot heels, and this was their chance. I wanted her look to be absolutely stunning. I was going for giving her dressed to kill and like she just got off work. And as such the sort of stripperesque version of kyle took shape.

Final renderings, and costume inspiration

After the sketches and research I began filling out the sketches, and putting in the patterns and textures I was looking for in the costumes. At the time I was just getting done with the spring dance concert, and so I didn’t have the time to redo the line work, or even put the sketches into better poses so I worked with what I had at the time.

Nan

For Nan I was planning on a mustard cardigan and a tube top as part of her first steps into getting into being fashionable. But simple pants in a sort of green tone, and work shoes because I wanted to reflect on the fact that she’s been at work, and when she comes home Kyle makes her finally pull through with her plan.

Kyle

You could say I wasn’t too inspired for Kyle. I gave him the all out country style dude bro treatment. Complete with camo, a wife beater and boots that just need thrown out. But as a last touch I wanted to add the green flannel. So that Sweetheart could have hers as contrast.

Simon

Of course I kept Simon’s look together with the source material, but I tried to see about adding some little details to make it more of our own design.

Sweetheart

With Sweet heart we got to have fun, and be extra in her design. With the permission of the actress and the director Sweetheart got to be the country fem fatale. Who at first I saw with short hair, but when we saw the actress’ hair at the time decided to scratch it and let her keep the long hair.

Bonus work for the show

As I mentioned before we couldn’t find the UGA uniform, and as such we had to make due and I carved a patch from felt and sewed it together myself.

To do this I made my own vector version of the G logo, and cut out a pattern with my Cricut. From there I hand carved the felt with an Exacto blade. Then came the easy part with running it through the sewing machine with the applique settings.

On stage gallery

Finally I would like to present my gallery. Photos were all taken by Grace Richardson.

Before I get into these I have a few more things to add. We had another look added by the director a week before we hit dress rehearsals, and second id like to talk about my choice of colors compared to the neutrals of the set.

First we had a second look added to the main three characters. When they go into the karaoke scene the director wanted them to have something added to each of their costumes, except for Nan who actually lost her cardigan for this scene to show off her top more. At this time I was able to find a lovely shawl for Sweetheart that had hints of metalic tinsel woven into it, and then I found a nice lame (la-mei) vest with a metalic facing fabric.Next I found them both hats that were going to be nice and fashionable. Starting with a village persons hat for Simon, and then I found a nice knitted pageboy hat for Sweetheart that I then added gold sequins to to match the tinsel in her shawl. We sadly didn’t get many pictures for this scene as it took place in a harder to see space of the venue.

As a final note I had about my design, I wanted to add that I used the split complimentary color scheme to illustrate the dynamics between the characters. Nan was yellow to match her bright warm aura. Sweetheart was Violet not just because it compliments yellow, but it would also contrast to Kyle.

Kyle was green as a bit of a twist. Even though Simon was the more grounding individual for Nan he had to be red it was written that way but I wanted to also use that to illustrate the dynamic between Kyle and Simon. Green and Red are both opposites, but when you would look at the two characters personality they two are opposites. As such I wanted to play on that and made sure Kyle’s colors were green because not only is it opposite to red, but it highly contrasts with violet as well. In this way red and violet work with the yellow, and against the red. That way the color theory exist as a layer of metaphor over their narative.