Songs For A New World
Director: Tracey Brent-Chessum
Costume Designer: Aimee Johnson
Assistant Costume Designer: Me
Anyone that has done this musical, Songs for a New World, know that it's somewhat unusual/untraditional. There's no dialogue whatsoever. It is only musical numbers; and as a result, the only character/location descriptions are what was originally given by the writer, Jason Robert Brown. However, these descriptions were fairly vague; and as a result, there was some creative liberty allowed to any design that approached this show. As a result, I do not have a character breakdown or scene-by-scene because all of that is immediately given to you or determined by the desires of the director. The direction that our director gave my designer and I relied more on our research and design boards than formal scene placements and "script descriptions" in a character breakdown.
Research
HMU
Final Designs
Due to the nature of the show, as previously discussed, our costume boards evolved into final mood boards. Our research boards into our design boards didn't change much. The director really liked what we had; and it was was buy/pull show. Images from the research became the leads of our design when seeking out what to pull/buy. Though I had a say in everything that ended up on stage, my primary design was the "Surabaya Santa" soloist (the character in the red dress). Above, I included my HMU design; I also had a heavier hand in the direction of her research, as well.
