Latest news on my costume design!

Well well, I can't believe it's been April since I last blogged! That's because I have been very busy with a number of really interesting projects.

Some time in February I was contacted concerning doing costumes for an independent film about Gregory Popovich's Pet Theater. I had seen Gregory Popovich's charming afternoon show with his trained rescue dogs and cats at Planet Hollywood, knew he was a 6th generation Moscow Circus artist, and also knew of the film's producers from previous films. I was intrigued. I read the script and was hooked. It's not my usual type of project, but how can you resist colorful characters and animals! I was also able to contact Antonio Fargas, whom I had worked with on the film "Stealing Las Vegas" and persuade him to play a leading role in the film.

Filming was delayed a couple of times, but finally got underway in May and has been going well ever since. We do not shoot every day, as in a regular feature shoot, because Gregory still performs his show almost every afternoon, and the Thompson Brothers (co-producers and directors) also have other professional commitments, so all in all it has been fun and not too high pressure. It's a lovely story, and I hope the final product does very well with children (of all ages!).

Then in May, two additional things happened. My husband Dominic Calandra, an actor in "Tony and Tina's Wedding", had ten days off as his show moved from Planet Hollywood to Bally's, so we grabbed that window of opportunity to take a quick trip to Sicily, a place we had talked about visiting for some time. I had very little time to put plans in place, but I love being a virtual travel agent, and found some amazing places to stay on the Internet.

The second thing that happened was that I got a call to costume design a modern day version of Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" for Opera Las Vegas. It was to open two weeks after my return from Italy! I nearly turned it down, but then I couldn't resist the chance the design an opera, something I had never done before. I quickly downloaded a filmed production of the opera from the Metropolitan Opera's website and researched the 5 principle singers, who have all performed at the Met. The director and conductor were also from the Met.

I admit at first I was a little intimidated by the idea of costuming major opera stars, especially on a small budget, but they turned out to be totally approachable and good fun. When I arrived at the first rehearsal, I was surprised (I don't know why!) to see them all in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. Then they opened their mouths and out poured Mozart's music! It was funny to me, but I soon got used to it.

This is probably enough for this post. I will tell you about designing the opera another day.