The Wizard of Oz

February 12, 2023

The Wizard of Oz

The wizard of Oz

Over the next couple of months we were going to be involved in The Wizard of Oz theatre production that would be held in the Margaret Armstrong Theatre, this will include planning and designing all the characters makeups and collaborating with the director and the actors.

One of the first things I done when I found out we were going to be working on the show was to do some research into the history of Wizard of Oz.

Wizard of Oz is based on the 1900's children's novel 'The wonderful Wizard of Oz' by L. Frank Baum. For almost as long as the children's novel has been in existence there have been stage adaptations of the story. In 1902 L. Frank Baum, Paul Tietjens and A. Baldwin Sloane created the first on stage musical comedy of The Wizard of OZ which premiered in Chicago. In 1903 The Wizard of Oz officially opened on Broadway and became the longest running show of the decade with over 290 shows! The Wizard of Oz then went on tour until 1911!

In 1939 the musical film of The Wizard of Oz starring Julie Garland debuted and grow to become one of the most treasured films of all time!

There have been two greatly successful musicals inspired by The Wizard of Oz they are...

The Wiz (1975)

Wicked (2003)

Basic Plot for The Wizard of Oz - Dorothy and her dog Toto got caught inside a tornado and ended up in the land of Oz, to get home Dorothy needed to follow the yellow brick road to find the mighty Wizard of Oz. Along the way Dorothy met a Scarecrow that needed a brain, a Tin-man that needed a heart and a cowardly Lion wanted courage. Dorothy runs into some trouble along the way due to the Wicked Witch of the West!

As a group the next thing we did together was to read through a script giving to us by the director, as we where reading we also made notes on what the script told us about the characters and there appearance so that we could discuss any potential issues that we might need to solve. By discussing the characters we could also make a list of makeup/wigs/products that would need to be ordered for the shows.

To help us get ideas for each character and there makeup looks as a makeup group we watched multiple different videos on how other theatre productions applied and made their actors into the characters. This really helps us all in thinking about all the little things that would need to be included to complete the looks. for example the Wicked Witch had a nose and chin prosthetic pieces in most productions so we needed to think if we where going to also apply these to our Witch, also she was fully green so we needed to think of the best way for us to make her this colour that would have the best coverage. We would also need to remember that each bit of skin that you can see would need to be green or covered in some way, this goes for other characters also not just the Witch, The Tinman is also fully Silver in the productions as he is made from tin so the actors playing this role would also have to have anything that is shown covered in silver. Other notes I took while watching some of the videos were...

kiss mark on Dorothy vivid lavender - meant to happen on stage - how?

Scarecrow - face painted - blue eyes one bigger than the other - use stitches and patches to make him look made - would we be using a piece for the nose?

Munchkins - fully green

Winged Monkeys - how to create a monkey - also have long finger nails in the script.

Lion - would we use a piece to create the mouth or faint paint the whole look? - would we use a wig? - crepe wool for facial hair?

Tinman - do we use pieces to create a nose and a jaw or paint them?

These are the types of questions we would need to come up with answers to in order to create designs then we would need to budget and order things that were going to be needed. This means we have to be quick in our decision making to make sure everything we need would arrive in time.

To be ready for our next meeting we all had our own tasks to complete in order to keep on schedule, we had to create initial designs and face charts for the characters we had chosen. My character was the Lion, Neive one of the other MUA's also had to create designs for the Lion, which I think is a good idea as we will both have different ideas on what we think the character should look like and how to create this. We both shared our designs and thoughts with each other and pulled bits from each others to come up with a design we both were happy with ready to try out. We decided we would use a prosthetic piece to create the nose and mouth shape, a wig would be best to use to create the Lions main and we would try grease paints and water based paints creating the face to see what works best. Some of the others had came up with designs for there characters also which meant we had some of the previously asked questions answered now. It was decided that the only character that would be using a prosthetic piece would be the Lion as thinking about the actors having to wear them, the amount of shows, and also the budget we have for the production this would make the best sense, as we could also either make our own pieces for these or draw them on using the makeup.

The Tinman and the Wicked Witch would also be using gloves for their hands to save them having to be painted all the time. The Witch would have a hair piece made for her. Both the good Witches would be having crowns/tiaras made for them. The munchkins and Ozites would be able to apply their own makeup following a face chart, they would also be giving a demonstration of the makeup looks before hand and someone would be on hand to help them if needed, but since there in a lot of actors placing these roles we as MUA's would not have take to apply all these looks as well as all the main characters makeups.

my creation of a monkey

The monkeys had been practiced a couple of times by some of the first years but I thought there was still something missing from the look, I also thought that there needed to be a difference between the flying monkeys and the king. I decided to have a little play about and see what I could create. I watched a few different tutorials on people face painting monkeys, then asked one of my other MUA's if she was model for me so that I would be able to practice. I added crepe wool around the sides of the face to finish the look. I think the look worked once finished, I made sure we went through to the theatre to check that the look was strong enough from the stage and that the director was also happy with the design.

once everyone was happy with the finished look I got started on making the facechart for the look, the hardest part was making sure I explained how to create the look fully as there is a lot of detail in the creating of the monkey. I thought it would be good to use this design for the King of the Monkeys then the design the first years had came up with for the Flying Monkeys just adding little changes to make them cohesive.

We were getting really close to shows now and we needed to make sure we where happy and able to create all the different makeup looks needed, as we wouldn't just be having the same makeup for the duration of the shows, each day we would be having different characters to create. I chose to practice the Lion as I've never used a prosthetic piece before and wanted to be comfortable in the design, this and the monkeys where the only real ones I felt like I needed to practice. I was scheduled in to create the Wicked Witch, Dorothy, both good Witches, the Lion, the Scarecrow and King of the Monkeys.

The Lion practised by myself and Libby.

ShowTime!!

Show week was here and everyone was prepared and ready to go! This week was going to be a long week for everyone working on the shows, we had some early morning call times with shows starting some days by 10am which meant MUA's had to be in for 8am, and late finishes with the last shows starting at 7pm. One plus side with this show is we don't have any changes in-between the show other than maybe some powdering here and there and maybe some lip touch ups there wouldn't be much to do once the final show had started other than tidy and set back up ready to start again the next day. This meant as a makeup group we could alternate between ourselves who will stay back for touch ups each night so we all did our parts.

Over the next week of working on the show I think the makeup team worked really well with each other and with the actors, we faced little issues along the way such as the makeup products we ordered didn't arrive until about 4 days into the shows, so until then we had to improvise with what was available to us and make it work. There was a problem with one of the Actors not showing up which had everyone panicking but as there was multiple casts,one of the other actors playing the same role stepped in on there day. This happened for the Lion and then again for the Wicked Witch as the actor meant to play the Witch was unwell. We had an MUA unwell and not able to attend so we had to rearrange the makeup schedule to adjust for the extra makeup, One of the actors came down with conjunctivitis which meant we had to be even more strict on health and safety for hygiene reasons to make sure this was not able to spread about, for this we made sure we used all disposable applicators and avoided the eye area as much as possible. All this is part of working on a live production, problems come up and you just have to find away to work around them.

Half way though the week we had another early start which meant the actors were in from 8am on the morning for the first show starting at 10am, after this show the actors had a break until they were needed again for makeup at 5pm, When the actors came back to the makeup room we had noticed that this wouldn't just be touch ups needed, for most of them had fallen asleep and their makeup needed to be fully redone for the evening show. I was actually pleased to have had more to do this day as it felt like it had been a long day waiting around for the next show. This is the worst part for me waiting around I like to be kept busy so I am always looking to see if anything else is needed to be done or anyone is needing any help. One of the actors playing the Historian asked me to add to his makeup look, as this was ageing makeup (which he had previously had done by myself on another theatre show) he felt the look wasn't strong enough for the stage.

Other than the few small issues I think the whole week was amazing everyone worked well as a group and the show itself was FANTASTIC! everyone did incredible.

Some of the makeup looks I created of the week working on the show.