The most impressive thing about Pirates was the
set. Both acts were impressive, but especially the second
act. Erik and I helped build the second act. Some of the
second act set is seen in these pictures.
My other contribution was the mask portion of a demon, dubbed
'Cuddles', that was the source of the torture in act two. The
torture has always been vaguely defined, and in the first run it was
just the ancestors pointing fingers at the bad baronet. Not
terribly exciting, but it was the Victorian period, y'know?
So in this show the director, Jason Smith, wanted the torture to be
really frightening. After a number of ideas were discussed and
discarded, we had a demon rise up from a portion of the set to add a
bit of character to the scene. I'm not sure if anyone in the
audience realized that the pain was coming from Cuddles, but it looked
good and didn't detract from the play.
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Ruddigore
Winter 2003 |
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| The mask for cuddles was mounted
to the performer's head. Megan Hiemstra portrayed Cuddles.
Megan looked out the mouth area, and I ran a transformer that made the
eyes glow. The red color comes from a standard theatrical
lighting gel. |
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The reminder of the costume was mde by the
costume designer Marylin Gouin, and David Zinn provided the trimmings.
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| Cuddles first appeared with the arms wrapped around the body. But when the torture really heated up... |
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Scary, huh?
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