This fall CATCO Costume Studio Manager Tatjana Longerot designed the costumes for Capital University’s production of Macbeth, and CATCO Costume Fellow Kelly McBane acted as Assistant Costume Designer, Makeup Designer–and Severed-Head Maker Extraordinaire!

Here, as a Halloween tribute, we have some details on how Kelly made the severed head prop for the production, in her own words. Enjoy!

I really like gore. Fake gore. So when, as the assistant costume designer and makeup designer for Capital University’s production of Macbeth, I was asked to build another head, I jumped at the chance. 

In this Shakespearian tragedy, Macduff cuts off Macbeth’s head and he holds it out over the audience.

Don’t try this at home because it is messy and dangerous.

On the night of the face casting we showed up to a very excited group of students. We began the demonstration by explaining the process and prepping the actor.

Prepping the actor

The product we were using was an Alginate face casting system, the same thing dentists use to take molds of your teeth. After explaining and prepping, we cast the actors face with the alginate, and then covered it in plaster bandages to give it a strong base.

Casting the Actor's Face (Kelly McBane at Left)

Before leaving that night, we also mixed up some liquid plaster and poured it into the mold to make a plaster positive. A couple days later I made a plaster negative by recasting the plaster copy. Finally I made a latex copy of the face.

The next part of the process is the fun part. I got a Styrofoam wig head and used it as a base. I took the latex face and ears and padded them out with quilt batting and used hot glue to secure it all to the face. Then I used makeup, fabric, a wig, and fake blood to make it look real.

Severed Head!

The folks at Capital University were really happy with the head, and so was I. It looked really good on stage covered with, and dripping in fake blood.

Creepy, huh? What do you think? Have a Happy Halloween!!

Kelly McBane, CATCO Costume Fellow

Rehearsals are about to begin for Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, CATCO’s Christmas offering this season. It’s not your usual holiday fare — one critic described it as “It’s a Wonderful Life for Thinking People.” I like it because, like so much modern Irish drama, it’s funny, it’s moving, it’s provocative and it’s energetic. The story revolves around five men who settle down for Christmas eve to drink and play poker. As the evening progresses, “Sharkey” (the central character, portrayed by Mark Mann) realizes that he’s playing for much, much higher stakes than he had realized.

As an actor in this one (I play the single stranger at the game, “Mr. Lockhart”) I know some of the challenges the cast will face. The Irish dialect is a demanding one (it’s a bit more intricate than the Lucky Charms commericals would suggest). Fortunately, our director, Mandy Fox, is a dialect expert. And playing poker onstage while saying lines is more difficult than you would think. When we did Dealer’s Choice — another poker play — we tried just dealing the cards and then pretending that we had the poker hands that the script indicated. But it was too confusing: when you’re supposed to say “I have a full house” and you’re looking at a pair of twos, it’s very easy to say the wrong line. So we ended up stacking seven or eight decks of cards so that we would end up with exactly the right cards for the scene.

–Geoff Nelson, Artistic Director & “Mr. Lockhart” in The Seafarer