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Making Faces, Playing God: Identity and the Art of Transformational Makeup

Wearing a mask--putting on another face--embodies a fundamental human fantasy of inhabiting other bodies and experiencing other lives. In this extensively illustrated book, Thomas Morawetz explores how the creation of transformational makeup for theatre, movies, and television fulfills this fantasy of self-transformation and satisfies the human desire to become "the other." Morawetz begins by discussing the cultural role of fantasies of transformation and what these fantasies reveal about questions of personal identity. He next turns to professional makeup artists and describes their background, training, careers, and especially the techniques they use to create their art. Then, with numerous before-during-and-after photos of transformational makeups from popular and little-known shows and movies, ads, and artist's demos and portfolios, he reveals the art and imagination that go into six kinds of mask-making--representing demons, depicting aliens, inventing disguises, transforming actors into different (older, heavier, disfigured) versions of themselves, and creating historical or mythological characters.

Theater District, Midtown Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

The Golden Theater survives today as one of the historic theaters that symbolize American theater for both New York and the nation. Built as the Theatre Masque in 1926-27, the Golden was among the half-dozen theaters constructed by the Chanin Organization in the mid-1920s, to the designs of Herbert J. Krapp, that typified the development of the Times Square/Broadway theater district.

Founded by Irwin S. Chanin, the Chanin organization was a major construction company in New York. During the 1920s, Chanin branched out into the building of theaters, and helped create much of the ambience of the heart of the theater district. Chanin built the Theatre Masque as part of a complex on Shubert Alley including three theaters--the Theatre Masque, Royale and Majestic--and a hotel, the Lincoln (now the Milford Plaza). The theaters were of varying sizes, and the Theatre Masque was intended to be a small theater of 800 seats, presenting high-quality, "intimate" drama. The Theatre Masque was renamed the Golden in the 1930s when producer John Golden took control of it.

Herbert J. Krapp, who designed all the Chanins' theaters, was the most prolific architect of the Broadway theater district. Having worked in the offices of Herts & Tallant, premier theater designers of the pre-war period, Krapp went on to design theaters for the two major builders of the post-war era, the Shubert and Chanin organizations.

The Golden represents a typical and important aspect of the nation's theatrical history. Beyond its historical importance, its facade is a

handsome design, one of a group of Chanin theaters which depart from the traditional neo-Classical style for a more romantic, eclectic style which Chanin and Krapp called "Spanish modern."

For half a century the Golden Theater has served as home to countless numbers of the plays through which the Broadway theater has come to personify American theater. As such, it continues to help define the Broadway theater district, the largest and most famous concentration of legitimate stage theaters in the world.

The development of the Broadway Theater District

The area of midtown Manhattan known today as the Broadway theater district encompasses the largest concentration of legitimate playhouses in the world. The theaters located there, some dating from the turn of the century, are significant for their contributions to the history of the New York stage, for their influence upon American theater as a whole, and in many cases for their architectural design.

The development of the area around Times Square as New York's theater district at the end of the 19th century occurred as a result of two related factors: the northward movement of the population of Manhattan Island (abetted by the growth of several forms of mass transportation), and the expansion of New York's role in American theater. The northward movement of Manhattan's residential, commercial, and entertainment districts had been occurring at a steady rate throughout the 19th century. In the early 1800s, businesses, stores, hotels, and places of amusement had clustered together in the vicinity of lower Broadway.

As New York's various businesses moved north, they began to isolate themselves in more or less separate areas: the financial institutions remained downtown; the major retail stores situated themselves on Broadway between 14th and 23rd Streets, eventually moving to Herald Square and Fifth Avenue after the turn of the century; the hotels, originally located near the stores and theaters, began to congregate around major transportation centers such as Grand Central Terminal or on the newly fashionable Fifth Avenue; while the mansions of the wealthy spread farther north on Fifth Avenue, as did such objects of their beneficence as the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The theater district, which had existed in the midst of stores, hotels, and other businesses along lower Broadway for most of the 19th century, spread northward in stages, stopping for a time at Union Square, then Madison Square, then Herald Square. By the last two decades of the 19th century, far-sighted theater managers had begun to extend the theater district even farther north along Broadway, until they had reached the area that was then known as Long Acre Square and is today called Times Square.

A district of farmlands and rural summer homes in the early 1800s, Long Acre Square had by the turn of the century evolved into a hub of mass transportation. A horsecar line had run across 42nd Street as early as the 1860s, and in 1871, with the opening of Grand Central Depot and the completion of the Third and Sixth Avenue Elevated Railways, it was comparatively simple for both New Yorkers and out-of-towners to reach Long Acre Square. Transportation continued to play a large part in the development of the area; in 1904 New York's subway system was inaugurated, w

DISCLAIMER!- no Anna's were hurt during the shooting of this scene!

But seriously, this was the first idea to spring to mind when i saw todays challange.

i don't know about anyone else, but here in the UK, we seem to have a bit of a drinking problem, most especially with our youth culture. Apparently, statistics are showing that our young females are the worst binge drinkers and many a friday night has ended this way the next morning!

It's all makeup, i assure you. turns out that i have a theatrical effects store 5 mins away from my house! so chuffed with that discovery! anyway, i may have gone a little OTT with the make up but i ran it past my daughter and she doesn't think it'll be too much for people, but if it is, please let me know, don't want to offend anyone, it's just meant as a bit of fun!

(funnily enough, i just finished editing this 2 mins before i had to collect my daughter from school, that was a frantic face washing!)

mug (shot)-ODC2