By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLIS ó Last Sunday afternoon, Ian Prince was struggling to glue on fake eyelashes. After a few false starts, he managed to attach them to his eyelids. His wife, Kathryn, helped him apply lipstick and punched up the blush he’d already applied to his cheeks.
After his face was suitably painted, Ian donned a Marie Antoinette-style wig, strapped on stilts and climbed into a 10-foot by 10-foot dress.
Oh, the things parents do for their children.
Ian was getting ready to play Mother Ginger ó a comic role traditionally played by a man made up to look like a woman ó in Piedmont Dance Theatre’s dress rehearsal of “The Nutcracker” at the Kannapolis Performing Arts Center on the campus of A.L. Brown High School.
The show was performed there Friday and Saturday and will be performed at Keppel Auditorium in Salisbury Dec. 21, for the second year in a row.
The costume was designed by Ian’s wife Kathryn ó who also created some of the show’s other costumes, as well as designing and painting the gorgeous backdrops.
Kathryn and Ian got involved with “The Nutcracker” in order to spend more time with their 6-year-old daughter, Lillian, who is among the show’s dancers.
Ian estimates that about 30 hours of work went into the elaborate costume, which features a system that works like a Roman shade that allows him to pull up the voluminous skirts so that dancers can scurry in and out of it (there’s actually a light underneath the skirt, so the dancers can see). Both Kathryn and Ian worked on the project.
Watching Ian on stage, you’d never suspect this was his first real drama experience ó he seems pretty comfortable as a gigantic woman in drag, swaying to the music and doing a modified Macarena. In his everyday life, Ian is the real estate manager for Roush Fenway Racing.
Piedmont Dance Theatre founder and artistic director Rebecca Wiley says she’s never seen a more well-designed Mother Ginger costume than the one the Princes have made ó and she’s seen and danced as a professional in numerous productions.
“I was just floored,” says Wiley, who used to be a full-time company member of the American Ballet Theatre in New York City. “It’s unbelievable.”
Putting the costume together was “quite a production,” says Kathryn, who majored in painting and product design at the University of Michigan.
Rebecca approached the couple in June about helping with the show. They began planning in July.
The first part of the creative process was going online to find some pictures of Mother Ginger costumes, Kathryn says.
Keeping in mind that the costume needed to be able to fit eight dancers underneath, Ian made a scaled-down model of the shape that they wanted.
Then, they scaled it up.
The giant hoop skirt is made of irrigation pipe; the skirt is arranged on top.
With a corset-like design, the skirt is cinched tightly to Ian’s waist ó after he’s put on the stilts that he must wear for the role.
The hat is made of the same gorgeous fabric ó donated by Casa Fiora Drapery ó as the dress. Kathryn constructed the hat from an ice cream bucket and a basket.
She also designed and made 16 angel costumes for this year’s production. She confides that the elegant gold costumes are actually made out of shower curtains from Big Lots.
“We do everything on a budget,” she says. “We can’t just run out and buy the most gorgeous expensive fabric.”
Wiley has been thrilled to discover Kathryn’s immense talent for design and execution.
“She’s a genius of sorts,” Wiley says.
For Kathryn, all the volunteer hours are worth it when she sees how the young dancers react.
“When they see the backdrop come down and their jaws drop, it’s so special,” Kathryn says.
Kathryn and Ian’s daughter Lillian plays one of the angels in the show’s first act. Lillian has been taking dance lessons from Wiley since she was 2, Kathryn says. This is Lillian’s third year of being in “The Nutcracker.”
Kathryn tries hard to make sure her daughter is part of the creative process, letting her push the sewing machine pedal while she makes the costumes and even letting her help paint the backdrop.
“It’s so important to let your kid be involved,” she says.
“That’s what you do it for, to inspire them when they’re young,” she says.
Kathryn says that when she was 5, she decided to be an artist ó and her parents agreed.
“They could see a talent and just arranged for lessons and got the the supplies and spoke to people they knew who had supplies. And they afforded me the opportunity to go to art school,” she says.
“I appreciate that they recognized a talent and allowed me to pursue it,” she says.
She and Ian have tried to take the same approach with Lillian, who decided she wanted to dance when she was 18 months old, Kathryn says.
Kathryn and Ian met while they were students at the University of Michigan, where they both earned bachelor in fine arts degrees.
Lillian is excited about her father’s role in “The Nutcracker” and will tell people, “Come and see my daddy in the dress,” Kathryn says.
Piedmont Dance Theatre teams up with the Salisbury Symphony to perform “The Nutcracker” at 2:30 and 6:30 p.m. in Salisbury on Sunday, Dec. 21, at Keppel Auditorium.
Tickets are close to selling out. Prices are $25 for adults in the orchestra and mezzanine sections; $20 in the balcony. Children are $12 in orchestra and mezzanine and $10 in the balcony. Seating is reserved.
Tickets are available at the Rowan Convention and Visitors Bureau, or call the symphony office at 704-637-4314.