Costume and set designers aren’t high on the mainstream media’s hit list, which explains why award-winning designer Judith Bowden, left, is so rarely interviewed about her art. Yet, when the curtain goes up on Mirvish Productions’ Cloud 9 at Toronto’s Panasonic Theatre Tuesday night, Bowden’s set and costumes will be the first things to register with the audience.
Bowden, in collaboration with director Alisa Palmer, has created a metaphorical and physical environment for the characters of this daring satire to inhabit. There’s nothing straight-ahead about Cloud 9, a play by Caryl Churchill (Top Girls), that tackles political and sexual oppression in British colonial Africa and modern London; on Cloud 9, time shifts, age and ethnicity mutate, gender bends.
By the time critics and audiences get their opportunity to judge the theatrical success of the production (win free tickets, details below), Bowden will be hard at work on her next gig, designing sets and costumes for the Shaw Festival’s An Ideal Husband. Such is life for a perpetually freelance artist.
“We’ve always lived this way, from job to job,” Bowden says. “Anyone who works in the theatre grows up with that insecurity — if you can’t get used to it, if it causes you a great deal of stress, then you have to find something else to do.”
A referral or an offer of work is much more important to the designer than awards or accolades. “Recognition is somebody phoning you up and asking you to do their next production,” she says. “If you’re successful, somebody calls to tell you that they loved a particular show you did and will you come over and work with them.”
As it stands, Bowden knows who’ll be buttering her bread through October. She’s been working steadily since completing her Masters Degree in Theatre Design at the University of Alberta in 1992. Although she’s worked right across the country, she tends to stay in Ontario now that she has a home, a husband and a young daughter.
Costumes are particularly crucial to Cloud 9, which explains the rack of muslin rehearsal garments offstage at the Panasonic. “In this play,” explains the designer, “because there are women playing men and men playing women and because there’s a period influence on top of that, the actors can’t rehearse without them. It’s unusual for the guys to be walking around in high heels, corsets and dresses and they’ve got to find their characters without turning the whole thing into a drag show. They need their acting technique, obviously, but they also need to feel at home in those clothes; it isn’t exactly a pantomime, it isn’t a drag show, it’s its own beast. So the rehearsal costumes were kind of crucial because of that.”
For every show she designs, Bowden creates beautiful, detailed sketches of her sets and costumes for the builders, painters and seamstresses to follow. She sells the paintings from time to time but says she’s never pursued an exhibit of her work.
“I hope that what I do onstage speaks for itself within the production. It shouldn’t stand out, it should visually support the story and provide a comfortable environment that makes sense for the actors. And if the design is doing all that then I don’t need it to relate directly to me. That’s not what it means to me to work in this industry.”
Like most successful, working artists Bowden is grateful to be doing what she loves. “You do so many years of schooling or you apprentice for years with another designer,” she says, “and all the while you wonder what you’ll be working at when it’s all said and done. I have been VERY lucky in that when I got out of school I started working right away. And it has continued. I think it’s a combination of luck and timing.”
And talent. Lots and lots of talent.
WHERE/WHEN: Cloud 9, January 19 to February 21, Panasonic Theatre (651 Yonge Street, 416.872.1212), $25 – $65.
Win Tickets to Cloud 9
Comment on this post for a chance to win one of five pairs of tickets to the January 28 performance of Cloud 9. Names will be drawn and winners notified on January 25.
Social bookmarks
Scroll to the Form to leave a comment.
I’d love to see these costumes in finished form. Please enter my name in the draw. Good post, Judith sounds like a true artiste.
Good article.
Gives you a real appreciation for the people who work behind the scenes at some of these famous shows.
This designer is an up and comer, great to see her profiled. Yay for theatre!!!
This production is brimming with talent. Hats off to Mirvish for investing in local talent.
This is a great post (as are all the articles here!) Costumes seem especially important for this play. It’s nice to find out about someone who makes it all come alive behind the scenes. Looking forward to seeing the final result.
great picutres of the costumes. makes you want to see it in person
Thanks for the great look behind the scenes. We tend to take the costumes for granted, or at least not fully appreciate what goes into them. Looks like it will be a fun show!
Costume drawings are always so beautiful ~ I love that such, at times, impressionistic pieces turn into wearable art ~ plus the drawings make great hangable art! Also, I agree with Lilie and I’m very happy to see a production peopled with our own excellent Canadian actors on one of our great stages.
I can’t wait to see such beautiful period pieces in a completely different way – men playing women and women playing men – all in these incredible costumes! How refreshing!
Beautiful costumes! It’ll be worth seeing this production for that alone.
Live With Culture’s Cloud 9 ticket giveaway is now closed and the following five commenters have won a pair of tickets to the January 28 performance: Christopher King, Lilie Zendel, Nicola Savin, Buzz and Gregory. Congratulations to the winners! If you are unable to use the tickets please let us know so we can go to the next person on the list. Thanks for visiting the site and thanks for commenting — please keep coming back.