IMATS London 2013

Just last week I attended the International Makeup Artist Trade Show in London.   Never having been to a trade show before, I was blown away by the sheer amount of cool things in one space.  Here are some of the great things I saw:

Seeing this in real life kind of made me freak out.  I've always loved watching this makeup on Doctor Who.

Rihanna's makeup artist Karin Darnell did a little tutorial.  Her main advice?
"Never settle for the most boring.  Just play.  Always push that touch too far.  Do your thing."  

Painted people were walking around everywhere.  

The student competition was so much fun to watch progress through the day.

Neill Gorton (who has done many many great things, including Doctor Who) working on an old age prosthetic makeup.  He applied this makeup in front of hundreds in lightning speed and it looked incredible.  I was a bit starstruck to see him.

We all know this was the scariest/weirdest part of Empire Strikes back.

van Gogh on this man's body.

The showroom floor.  It was a madhouse.  I spent so much money on makeup here.

Success.  Until next time, London IMATS!

The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable

This show.  Incredible.  But let me start this story from the very beginning. 

I have wanted to see Sleep No More by Punchdrunk since 2011.  I never thought I'd get the chance.  It just so happened that I had the opportunity to make a quick stop in NYC before my adventures in London.  The deciding factor in this stop was that I could see Sleep No More.  

Fast forward two months.  My time in London was drawing to a close, and Punchdrunk was opening their first new show in 6 years.  Sold out for weeks.  I had a ticket to the very first preview night of the show that I had earned by checking the website for returns every day.  I could barely handle the excitement.  

Both Sleep No More and The Drowned Man are set in enormous multi-level buildings with hundreds of incredibly detailed rooms to explore.  Actors interact with one another (and occasionally audience members) within the entire building.  Audience members are given free range of the building.  They can explore whatever and whoever they choose as long as they follow two rules: they remain masked, and they remain silent.  Incredible, I tell you.  The best way I found to describe it came from one of the top youtube comments for The Drowned Man trailer: "...it is an adventure and a story of your own devising, the closest to going through the closet to Narnia or falling into Wonderland that you can ever get." 

Over the course of my trip to London, I saw a total of 28 shows (including Sleep No More in NYC.)  Sleep No More and The Drowned Man were the bookends of this incredible feast of theatre which I experienced.  And really, what a better way to start and end such an epic adventure than with a breathtaking, immersive, detailed, abstract, magical, and emotional experience all while wearing a mask?  

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

While gallivanting the English countryside, I learned how to make crowns of foliage. This one happened to be from a country walk in Kent, but I also made flower crowns in Hyde Park.

 Just call me Mustardseed.  (A Midsummer Night's Dream reference.)

The first time I went to Portobello Market, this was playing.  So, if you're going to San Francisco (or London), be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.  Check.

In the beginning.

Oh, the world of blogging.  I'm going to put my words out on the internet.  Take that.  Here's a psychedelic cat gif from imgur: