The Finished cap, our end result.

Download a PDF instruction booklet of how to make this headdress, with full-sized photos, here.

Stages St. Louis went regal for their version of The Jungle Book

In approaching costume designs for the Stages St. Louis production of Disney’s The Jungle Book last summer, I looked at productions of the play, the Disney-animated feature and the real animals. Rudyard Kipling wrote his stories for an English-speaking audience, but the stories took place in exotic India—which is why I wanted the costumes to reflect an “English-idealized” India.

Then, our artistic director shared what he had in mind for the character of Shere Kahn, the tiger villain. Unlike the Disney feature, he proposed casting the character as a female, inspired by the Wilhelmina Slater character on the TV series Ugly Betty—a tailored, put-together, powerful “Queen of the Jungle,” with maybe a rhinestone or two.

The 2008 LDI show floor

SD ventured to LDI and brought back more than just a swag T-shirt.

LDI came back to Vegas this year, and Stage Directions was present at the tradeshow, chatting up friends, seeing what was new and drooling over the latest toys. Here’s what we found and what you can expect to see at load-in — or at least in your fantasy lighting plot.

Plays that encourage actors and the art form to stretch.

Theatre has never been a “one-size-fits-all” proposition, and there is always a need for imaginative plays that will challenge actors, directors and audiences. This month’s comedies and dramas do exactly that.

For Criss Angel Believe, designers went back to theatre basics, with a twist.

Harry Houdini was a great debunker of spiritual frauds. Before he died he gave his wife a secret code word, so that if anyone tried to convince her that Houdini was speaking from beyond the grave she would know they were a charlatan if they didn’t say the code. The code word? “Believe.”

HERE Arts Center seeks to prove you can create adventurous work even while owning your own space.

Kristin Marting, the founder and artistic director of HERE Arts Center in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood has displayed a remarkably consistent curatorial eye for spotting the new talent on the horizon, providing them with a home and offering publicity and marketing support to connect them to wider audiences and the prize- and grant-awarding bodies that enable artists to have careers.