CCF Makeup Crew!!

I was assigned the head of makeup crew for this year’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory production. A few months before I was offered the role of Charlie’s grandma after my tryouts – but I decided I had been having too much trouble balancing my theater extracurriculars with my schoolwork, so I decided to refrain from taking the role. It was also because I knew that last year I had let down my production team by being absent because of work at times: missing one day of rehearsal severely impacts the progress of the entire group. But when I realized the spot for the head of makeup was open, I was highly attracted to it. For one, I would be taking up a part of a theater production that was entirely unknown to me, which would allow me to develop skills as a well-rounded student in IB Theater. And also, I would gain valuable leadership experience: I have always worked as an actor in the productions I have been in, but never in a leadership position.

At first, the job was hard. I had to dictate the people who were assigned as makeup assistants, and that was no easy task. At first, I was planning on being on a friendly basis with them rather than their strict leader, but they constantly pushed my limits. At first, they constantly hesitated to meet after school with me to divide makeup roles and to practice. Every day, one individual or another would have an excuse on why they couldn’t come, and this delaying halted the progress of our entire group. Now I know how it feels to be a director: people are going to follow directions unless you are strict in your handling of them. After the first week of constant delaying, I learned this lesson. So the few weeks after that, I turned into a – excuse my French – complete B word. But it was necessary. If I heard any excuses, or witnessed any lazy, destructive behavior I would threaten the individual that I would kick them out of the makeup crew. It was extremely hard to act like this, but sometimes it has to be done as a director of teenagers. Often times I could be seen yelling out people to get out of the makeup room if they weren’t getting their makeup done, or to get off their butts to do someone’s makeup. An extremely tough decision was when I start noticing that one of the members of the makeup crew was not doing her job at all. Although she was a very nice girl, she had admitted that she was only part of the crew to get “CAS hours” – she spent most of the time either missing (at home) or on her phone if she was present within the school. I had to talk to Mrs. Morris and remove her out of the group. So one thing I learned was that it’s extremely tough to be a director, but sometimes you just have to be rough in your directions if you want anyone to listen. (Now I understand Mrs. Morris’s frustration with us actors during our Into the Light production).

Time management was also another problem. The makeup crew had to do makeup for almost a hundred characters under only an hour. In the first few rehearsals, this became a huge issue and often times the major characters would be sitting with barely anything on their face in the last few minutes before they were needed on stage. With time and practice, however, we were able to assign different roles for every individual with attention paid to time constraints, and we also made sure to do the characters in Act 1/the major characters first. The makeup itself was not easy at all: especially the older age makeup. Our crew continued to struggle with perfecting this makeup look until the very day of the production’s opening night. Although we all had entirely different visions for what this makeup was supposed to look like, it became important to ask advice from the actual actors and Mrs. Morris, as they were able to take other theater conventions such as staging and lighting into play as well.

Overall, I was very proud of the work we had achieved by the end of the production: I can’ t be happier with the makeup of each and every character. As I sat in the audience for the final show, I was very glad that I had decided to take on the role of makeup director. Now I can respect and admire the work that goes into a production off stage so much more.