From Kristen Ahern: "To Build a Testicle, The Costume Designer’s Perspective"

I love this show. It has everything I love about theatre, it’s clever, bawdy, musical, historical, fantastical and many other adjectives; in short, I was thrilled to be asked to design it. I had planned on sharing my sketches for the show with you but sadly, my sketchbook has run off so here’s a brief description:

The design has one foot in history, one in modern day, and one in a Grimm faerie tale. It’s the largest show I’ve done so far without having a costume shop at my disposal, I counted costume pieces for my Mum over Christmas and I was up to 130 individual items and that included things like “suit” or “socks” which technically are each two pieces. It also has used many different techniques: corsetry, dying, distressing, paper mache, painting, tailoring, thrifting, altering, renting, millinery. In short, this show uses almost every costume creation technique possible.

I am being helped by some lovely ladies, Katie (who is pulling double duty by also being in the band) and someone not even associated with the company but a willing friend of a member of the company, Ruth. I would not be able to do this without help; I should also mention that of my boyfriend, Michael, who has kept me fed and functioning during the sprint to the finish since Christmas.

To conclude, here is a picture of my sewing room at 7:30 AM after a night of paper mache, January 3^rd, 34:30 to first dress rehearsal: