[This page is part of a mirror of my Canvas learning system pages I created for my Drama 112 Intro Stage Makeup class at DVC. If you want to use this content for another Canvas class shell you can find it in Canvas Commons by searching for “Tara Maginnis” and you can download all or part of this directly into your shell with all the extra cool formatting of colored divider lines, right side embedded Giphy animations, etc. already put in, if you are working with a different system, it is ok to copy and paste from here, and then customize the pages as you need for your classes].
I am very pleased to have you in my class. Really, I actually am. You student people are fun! If you are in doubt check out 10 years of photos of how much fun my DVC makeup students are. Some facts about me:
Born in Northern California.
Went to a California Community College (College of Marin).
Transferred to San Francisco State University and got a BA in History.
Got a MA in Theatrical Design at CSU Fresno.
Got a Ph.D. in Theatre History at the University of Georgia.
My dissertation was on Fashion Shows, Strip Shows and Beauty Pageants.
I once presented papers at two conferences on the same weekend in Los Angeles. One was a UCLA Conference on Burlesque, the other a Strippers Convention!
I worked as a Professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks for 18 years.
I’ve been teaching stage makeup classes since the early 1990s.
I took a year off to live alone in St. Petersburg, Russia in the mid 1990s as a hippie theatre artist.
I don’t speak Russian. I can’t do times tables. I will likely be unable to remember your name or connect it properly to your face. (This is part of why I take your “mug-shots”.)
As my mother was dying in 2007 and her vision was messed up, I read her all 7 Harry Potter books out loud, including doing all the funny voices.
I obsessively collect 1860s-1920s men’s detachable shirt collars.
I watch MSNBC while I cut up my old soda bottles into flowers like this:
I have been working at DVC as Costume Designer for the Drama department since 2008.
If you need to contact me you can always text or call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX 11am-11pm, but if you just want to visit at my office half “hour” this is when it happens: Tara Maginnis Office “Hour”Mondays & Wednesdays 1-2pm in PA 121 (cubicle off the Greenroom with giant wooden scissors in the window).
So, while I’m primarily a costume designer/tech, I’ve been teaching intro to stage makeup classes since the early 1990s. In 2005-6 I filmed a bunch of videos (or rather Kade Mendelowitz of the Theatre and Film Department of UAF and owner of Multimakers) filmed me while I made up my face and talked), so when I moved to a place where they wanted makeup classes of 20-30 people enrolled at DVC, and two 1hr 25 minute sessions weekly but the makeup room is crowded with anything over 15, It was handy to split the class into two groups that alternated watching me do the demo by video in the men’s dressing room (or eventually at home online) and doing the makeup in the makeup room.
However, if you are a teacher who uses the Canvas learning system, you can also go to Canvas Commons and search “Tara Maginnis” and find a bunch of class pages that go with these videos that explain to my own students how to do the assignments that go with the videos. Additionally, I inserted a bunch of YouTube videos of other folks how-tos on people of other genders and skin colors than a middle aged white chick (what I was when I did the videos), so students who needed advice from a male or non-white perspective could easily find these.
However, if you don’t use Canvas, or are a student who has been locked out of it at the end of the semester, I’m going to copy and paste a bunch of this stuff here as a mirror. If you are a teacher feel free to copy and paste anything you want (That is why it is on Canvas Commons) but do please remove my phone # from pages and insert your own contact information in it’s place, since every single semester I get a lost student who thinks I’m their professor and phones or texts me, and it typically takes between 30 minutes to an hour to track you down for them… I’m going to try to remove my info on these versions, but I may miss one.
So this image above is a screencap of the first page which has the usual recommended distance delivery stuff:
Introduction to Stage Makeup
Salutations!
This is your teacher Tara Maginnis (contact info below). I am pleased to welcome you to my introductory course in theatrical makeup. “This course presents the study of the aesthetics, materials, and procedures of stage makeup. Including “corrective” makeup, aging techniques, makeups which are in line with a play’s given circumstances, character makeup applications, makeups which accurately depict historical eras and cultural demands, and abstract/linear makeup design projects will be covered.” —DVC catalog.
By the end of the course, you’ll learn (and execute) a wide variety of types of stage makeup and finally build a portfolio of your work! If you need extra help or information at any point in the semester you can contact me by text, email or phone XXX-XXX-XXXX . I am also at DVC after our class on Mondays and Wednesdays till 8pm most times, and also come in Tuesdays and Thursdays (In Spring semester only) for teaching my Costume Class 12:45-5:35 and work after Dinner from 6:30-8pm those days . So, Monday-Thursday, text or phone me to find where I am hidden in the vast PAC building if you need me. When you can’t get here to see me, I’m usually conscious for phone or text 11am-11pm, though I won’t be texting while driving, in a meeting, or the shower…
You already have all you need right here…
Lots of what you want to know is right here though. Because Covid forced all of us to go online, nearly everything you need for class information-wise is right here on Canvas. Get sick with Monkeypox (or just a cold), and miss class? It is all here and you can catch up. Even before 2020 most of this class was also mirrored online and I’ve always allowed students to do work at home when they need to, or watch class videos online instead of watching them in the Men’s Dressing Room. You can come in and play in our splendid makeup room and have me do my personal photo shoot of your makeup (SO MUCH FUN!!!), or you can mess about with your face on the weekend and turn it in online. This is not advertised as a “Hi-Flex” class, but you can mostly treat it like one.
However, to begin, you must start somewhere, so I suggest you go each weekend to Modules even if you are coming in to class for every session so you are prepared for your class work. Go step by step through through the weekly assignments in order. Or you can just go to the silly “Magic Button” to be taken directly to the Modules:
I, like nearly everyone teaching in the US, and many around the world, started switching my classes in mid (Spring 2020) semester from face to face classes to trying to make them distance learning classes without much warning. Costume and Makeup classes in theatre are rather spectacularly ill suited to this sort of conversion. However, I have a bit more resources built up because I have flirted with Distance Education before. And I have been making all I can for my own classes as fast as I can. So, what follows are links to a bunch of hopefully useful stuff for you to use in your newly online costume and makeup classes:
My Stage Makeup class pages in the Canvas Learning system can be found and auto-uploaded to your Canvas shell in their entirety on Canvas Commons, but are also mirrored here at STAGE MAKEUP CLASS PAGES in case you are using a different system than Canvas. You can copy and paste bits or all of this into your system and spare yourself the extra work.
This was a handout and video I made for the face to face class in Spring 2020 semester so I could split the class into two rotating groups so only half the class would be sewing at once while the other got how tos and history from Youtube and me to prep them for the face to face sewing/drawing/costume crafts session for their next class.
Here is a video I made that will go into an upcoming week of class we spend on doing stuff with cheap and easy thermoplastics for costuming
This is a substitute for the buckram and hat wire millinery tutorial in the face 2 face class, because while we are on lockdown students can buy what they need for just a few $ at Dollar Tree and make this at home. There is also a step by step tutorial for making a Pool Noodle Marie Antoinette Wig:
I once presented papers at two conferences on the same weekend in Los Angeles. One was a UCLA Conference on Burlesque, the other a Strippers Convention!
