Kiyawat V. Graduation
Kiyawat versus my last studio show versus thinking outside the box versus three shows happening at once versus too many boba runs versus props designing my most intricate prop yet versus a bittersweet goodbye versus God.
I like to think I went out with a bang.
Kiyawat V. God was, in other words, one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever had on a show. I was officially confirmed to be the props designer sometime early January, and later that month is when I started to have preliminary design conversations with our incredible director, Fabiola. After reading through the script several times over, beginning to compile my props list, and in my early stages of research, I felt myself growing more impatient to finally get started and to hit the ground running. But I still had two months until our first rehearsal, a whole separate show to focus on (read my other blog about it here!), and my final semester of college to enjoy and live through until then.
I am a sentimental and bittersweet person to my core. I cannot even exaggerate that if I wanted to. I think from the very beginning of the process until the very end, I was always incredibly nostalgic for a moment that was actively happening, or that hadn’t happened yet. I was constantly aware that everything I am doing, I am doing for the last time at Fordham. This would be the last show I work on, my last time giving a design presentation, my last first rehearsal, my last time being a student, my last time working with this wonderful group of people, and my last time doing props design at Fordham. All of that combined with the end of the semester and graduation quickly approaching, you can imagine the nostalgia I was in by the end.
I’ve come to realize and learn that my work ethic when it comes to props design, specifically, is that I want to get ahead of it and accomplish it all at once. The show didn’t demand for a huge scale of props, I already acquired most of it during and for rehearsals, and I didn’t necessarily need an assistant. The two props that objectively were going to demand for most of my time were two skin masks I had to create, and “Guilty or Not Guilty” ballots for every performance. A few days before we began load-in, I was on campus to print photos for my film photography class and when I finished earlier than expected, I thought that I may as well just go ahead and print all the papers I’m going to need for load-in anyway. Using Canva, I created a design for an evidence bag, a design for a “God Code” book including the design for the back and spine, and the design for the actual ballots. I quickly stopped by the theater, counted all the seats, went back to the printer, and did the math to figure out how many copies I needed to print without losing my sanity.
This is an outline of the math and all of the numbers I had to keep track of and had running through my head:
Pages:
Page dimension is 9 x 11 in
Each page has six ballots
Nine copies of the page per show (6 ballots/page multiplied by nine copies = 54 ballots):
Each performance will have three extra ballots
11 pm performance needs double the amount, 18 copies of the page needed:
On each copy out of the 18, one of the ballots cannot be used due to a printer error
108 ballots were made for the 11 pm, minus the 18 defective ballots, total of 90 ballots set aside for that performance
Seats:
51 seats in the theater
11 pm performance will have a high demand and higher attendance, there needs to be extra for this performance
Performances:
Four confirmed performances (three at 7:30 pm, one at 11 pm)
Possibly two dress rehearsals
Total of six performances
End result:
360 ballots were printed, cut out, and organized in separate labeled bags for all of the performances
We only had one dress rehearsal, so towards the end of tech we were able to use the ballots from “dress rehearsal #2” for the actors to play around with
When I finally had all of my papers printed out, I then thought to myself, “what if I just cut them all out now? I have time!” And off I went. I had my favorite iced latte in hand, my headphones on, dozens of papers with me, music blasting through my headphones (I was in a huge Gracie Abrams phase at this moment), and a dream. I was in that room for maybe two to three hours, took occasional breaks and ran into friends, but I accomplished my goal and everything was cut out. I organized all the ballots into their own respective bag and labeled everything so it wouldn’t get confused or messed up, stopped by their rehearsal again, and shared my update with the direction and stage management team who looked at me as if I was crazy. “I am aware that we start load-in on Tuesday. However, the ballots are done. Oh and everything is printed.”
And then I barred them from opening the Ziploc bag of guilt until we reached our dress rehearsals.
This load-in was a fun one. There were three shows happening all at once, and each show had a massive cast size. Secretly and selfishly, I loved it. I loved seeing all of my friends, quickly hugging each other and saying hi before we ran off, seeing everyone in different costumes, constantly moving from one place to the other, and knowing everyone was at a different point in their process. Our show began load-in, another show began tech, and another show was about to begin performances. A highlight I have, out of many, is that often I would stop by another of our theaters to visit my friends who were working on that show. I liked to joke that I was infiltrating their space and they were infiltrating ours, but it never was a dull moment. We all went on break at the exact same time, which called for a three show crossover. Everyone either went to the vending machines, the water fountain, the restrooms, Ram Café, the bench by the art gallery, or standing outside our theater, all at the same time.
My first day of load-in was a calm one, I was the only one working on props and I created my own schedule to follow, and that first day saw me adding the “God Code” design to the physical book, creating the evidence bag, and working on some of the other minute details. I planned to work on the masks the second day, but because I was ahead of schedule and had the time, I went ahead and began experimenting with them later that night. I first washed and dried all of the masks, and then played around with the paint I was thinking of using on them.
The script called for a skin mask and in my early research, I came across face mask covers that typically would’ve been used on top of a regular face mask to keep them from shifting. I, however, loved the idea of using these mask covers to replicate the look of skin. The mask was made out of silicone, and seemingly the paint applied well on it, until it dried and the next day when I went to see if it held up, all of the paint was chipping off and did not stick to the mask. Suddenly I was back to square one and needed to find a workaround. That second day of load-in was one of the more tiring ones, as with every possibility I was trying I kept hitting a wall. I tried putting tape on the mask, looking into silicone-based paint, cutting an outline of the mask from a piece of fabric, and cutting a hole into a stocking. The tape naturally did not stick, due to budget and time constraints the silicone paint wasn’t a feasible option, cutting a mask outline from fabric was a solid contender, but the fabric needed to be elastic as the mask is worn by two different actors and cannot rip, and the stocking visually looked unsettling (which we wanted), but the hole cut into it kept getting bigger and ultimately would’ve been too much of a hassle for the actors to deal with. I had the idea of makeup floating in my head, and in passing I ran into one of my dear friends Sara, who was working on another show. I told her about the snag I’m facing, which funny enough all my friends heard about across the three shows, and she suggested I try powder makeup. Lo and behold, everything started to come together.
Every other prop was finished, more details were added into legal files I created, I found a more lasting way to ensure fake blood on a prop knife did not come off (a mix of fake blood and glue; thank you Amanda for the suggestion!), I created an extra evidence bag to eventually swap out with the first one, the props cabinet was thoroughly organized and truly became my baby, and I will forever regret not taking a picture of how it was set up. At a certain point, the mask upkeep is what took up most, if not all, of my time. For the two masks, I fit them on both the actors who would be wearing them and cut it accordingly so it would fit better, I used two different face powders for the base, a cream eyebrow palette to draw on and darken the eyebrows, liquid eyeliner to draw on eyelashes, powder blush on the cheeks, colored eyeshadow along the edges of the mask and eyes for further detail, and a mix of several different sharpies and fake blood to add to the edges of the mask to replicate blood. When the masks weren’t being used, I had two mannequin heads for both masks to live on respectively. I never wanted the masks to get dirty, ruined, or lost, and it was also easier for me to upkeep and touch up one mask than both, and given that one mask never gets worn but instead gets handed from one actor to the other, it was an unspoken designation and understanding that the left mannequin head had the mask that would be used. Needless to say, every single day after doing mask upkeep my hands were always covered in marker, makeup, and tainted either pink, red, or purple.
Because I was constantly altering and adjusting the look of the mask, I never felt happy with it. No matter how many compliments I received and people saying how horrifying it looks (the biggest compliment I could get, truly), I still was never proud of my work and subconsciously always felt it could be better, that I can make it better and do better. It wasn’t until our opening night when I finally relaxed on myself and felt happy with the turnout and how it looked. To this day, I think creating those skin masks has to be some of my favorite props I’ve ever created. It challenged me in a huge way to think outside the box, come face-to-face with what to do when my original plan falls through, and I will always cherish the amount of support I received from my friends. I felt like I hit a wall, and instead of dealing with it alone, I had friends from three different shows offer me suggestions, talk it through with me, and work with me on what I could try. How can I not be bittersweet when I have a village behind me! And in a strange yet expected way, I’ll forever think about and cherish the entire mask journey and how whenever anyone saw me, I would have a mannequin head in one hand, and my pink bag of makeup and markers in another.
CLOSING NIGHT
Our closing night was my most emotional night. Everything was preset for the last time, the masks had been touched up one final time, and the actors were huddling for the last time. This is the closing night of my final studio show at Fordham, and then “Under Pressure” starts playing. I was standing off to the side with one of my amazing friends Natalie, who was the scenic designer, and like a cartoon the tears quickly flew out of my eyes. There was no physical way I could stop it, and before I knew it that huddle grew to encompass the entire Kiyawat team.
I have an absurd number of highlights and takeaways that I’ve gained from this show. The prop notepad I had for one of the actors becoming a rite of passage for everyone to draw or write something in it, having multiple fans set up in the theater because of how hot it was, every single time the stenograph was used and how all the paper would spill out from it, one of my dear friends Raquel (who worked on another show right next to our theater) stopping by our rehearsal to hangout with me and Natalie, finishing a day of tech and a bunch of us sitting outside the theater trying to find a time to see the Minecraft movie, the entirety of the late night performance, memes being spoken and referenced constantly, the strap of my shirt ripping as I was in the height of my problems with the mask (and funny enough, the strap ripping as I was standing in the middle of our costume shop), always having multiple beverages on hand, playing around with the show’s social media and creating graphics for it, having a group lunch where around twelve or so of us were sitting together and then all of us going into the elevator, and always doing boba and sushi runs. But out of the many, many boba runs, the two that I think I will cherish the most are Raquel wearing her entire cap and gown setup, and when me, Raquel, Natalie, and Leela (the incredible playwright of the show and an even incredible friend), all went there together. And Leela saying that “this is what I will miss about Fordham Theatre, moments like this.”
In writing this, who could guess, I am indeed feeling incredibly sentimental. Working on Kiyawat V. God was an incredible experience that not only pushed me to a different level with my props design, work ethic, and overall approach to creating something from nothing, but the memories that I gained while doing so is something that is invaluable. I finished up Kiyawat V. God, prepared myself for final exams soon after, enjoyed being a student one last time, took graduation photos and started to feel the weight of reality, celebrated the end of the year with all of my theater friends, had an eventful and exciting senior week, saw friends and people whom I haven’t seen in years, and soon walked across the stage on graduation day and accomplished a personal milestone that I had been working for my whole life.
Video courtesy of Gigi Perlaza.
Kiyawat V. God played performances from April 24th to April 26th in the Kehoe Theatre at Fordham University.