Were the Sisters Mulleavy available for costume design, either for the players or the audience, I’d muscle my demure way to the head of the line: Wallpaper quotes them describing their fashion as “decayed, ruined, delicate and destroyed.”  I wouldn’t mind being in line for this exhibit, either.

There is something so sexy about decay.

“What will the cover look like?” asked an impatient friend, referring to Under the Poppy. “Who’s doing it? Do you have input?”  Another friend suggested (more than once) that Toulouse-Lautrec was the only man for the job. All other suggestions, nominations, etc., will be gratefully mulled when received. Not at all easy, to put a face to a novel, I think.

And this article talks about only three of the theatre companies in town; there are more (hey there, Demetri and BreatheArt!), all busy doing, as Igor Gozman says, what artists always do, in good times, tough times, for all time: thriving and surviving by making their art.  [Photo: Model D.]

Should you feel like getting your lights Punched out, and you’re in NYC, go see Gretchen Van Lente’s curatorial slate of actors human and non-. (Like this beauty in blue.)  One of the things that’s so hardcore fun about puppets is their variety; custom does not stale, etc., and that’s worth the entrance fee all by itself.

Haven’t yet seen the movie, but the rights tangle sounds like a jolly mess it would take Sherlock’s meth-addicted lawyers to unravel, so thank goodness Holmes and Watson have only their fashion sense to worry about.  The deerstalker doesn’t really make it, but those little round glasses, zowie…Costuming will play a big role, no pun intended, in our production – as it does on the novel itself, rather.  Those cravats!

Reading sideways, as I work, about the task, perils, and thrills of adapting one form into another: not always a cakewalk, a fact that relieves me. Then again, there’s this, starting from the summit and walking off into thin air, looks like.

…is just what it sounds like: Victorian punks.  Love the yellow pantaloon fellow – not everyone can work that outfit, but he so can.

Someone asked me – they always do ask, and in this media-saturated world, when everyone is shouting for your attention, who can blame them? – anyway, this person wanted a one-sentence description of Under the Poppy: not what it’s about but what it is.  And this was mine. riffing from a friend (hi, Deb!) who called it “so rich and dark that it is like a piece of expensive chocolate!”  Perhaps we ought to serve both at the publication party?

[All photos: DC.]