BWW Blog: Kate Cullen Roberts of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S - Closing Thoughts
By: Guest Blogger: Kate Cullen Roberts Apr. 19, 2013
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Breakfast at Tiffany's will be closing this Sunday, April 21st. A closing notice is always sad and of course we would have liked for this run to continue as long as possible, but the cast of Breakfast at Tiffany's is savoring our last week. We hope you will be able to make it to one of our last remaining shows! www.breakfastattiffanysonbroadway.com
As a fond farewell to our show set in the fashionable 1940's, for my last BWW guest blog post, I'd like to share with you a little bit about the incredible costumes and makeup we get to wear in the show!
Oscar winner Colleen Atwood designed our costumes. I'm no fashion expert, but what I can tell you is that I've become a big fan of the shoulder pad. The 40's silhouette is all about broad shoulders and a narrow waist. Sometimes when I take off my costume at the end of a show and put on my t-shirt, I feel like I took off something...my gigantic, broad, powerful shoulders. (Different decade, but Judith Light's Angela Bower in "Who's the Boss" also really appreciated this silhouette....)
The gorgeous Emilia Clarke has 20-something costume changes throughout the show (she is the queen of the quick change by now) so she gets to wear a whole gamut of looks from evening gowns to an equestrian get up. It's like a fashions show! And a good portion of what we wear are actual vintage pieces or copies of vintage pieces (if the fabric was too delicate or the fit not quite right, Colleen had something similar made.) The vintage swimsuits that Emilia and I wear in one scene are SO great -- bikini-like tops with a true-to-waist skirt bottom...flattering and just revealing enough. I kind of want to bring that back...I'd wear that on the beach!
The genius Roy Helland (yup, Meryl Streep's Oscar winning makeup guy...) designed our makeup. It was so much fun meeting him and getting a makeup tutorial with such a legend! My character is a little over the top so Roy let me go all out with the makeup. I wear massive false eyelashes on the outer corners of my eyes (I cut a set of long lashes in half). And he has me going crazy with the eyebrow pencil (think Joan Crawford thick...and a big arch.) In the past 8 weeks, I've gone through 2 eyebrow pencils. In the 40's they really liked to emphasize the lip by wearing lipstick outside of the natural lip line. Roy taught me that you can emphasize the curve of the "Cupid's bow" and the bottom lip line by drawing a line a few pencil lines width beyond the actual lip then fill it in with lipstick. If you look at pictures from that time, you'll see how all of the women did that. I'm leaving this for the stage, not in real life. But it really does work!
Roy said, "I have the PERFECT lipstick for you! I'm sort of cheating because this color was actually introduced in the '50s but it's such a great color red/pink, you MUST wear it." It's called "Cherries in the Snow" by Revlon. Revlon discontinued it at some point and then people freaked out so they brought it back. It's a great color! Pictures below.
Check out these videos, they crack me up...
My inspiration wall of models from the 1940's
My inspiration wall of models from the 1940's
Check out my crazy eyebrows, "Cherries in the Snow" lips and 40's hair!
A costume from a scene that was cut during previews. Even in a summer "romper", SHOULDER PADS!
My "modelling" shot. :)
Emilia Clarke in one of her incredible ensembles....check out those shoulder pads! Also, look how cute Cory Michael Smith is in his high-waisted trousers.
Videos