Kaidi Williams

Some Mother’s Son by Darren Harned	Play Synopsis   My Interview   Murder Video
Costume Design by Kaidi Williams
This play was produced for the first time in the final semester of my undergraduate degree. With only a little support from the costume shop staff, I was otherwise solely responsible for research, meetings, clothing, accessories, bags, hair, makeup, and disguising the blood pump. Almost all items were pulled from stock or borrowed from neighbouring universities; a select few things were bought and only one apron was constructed. Read More

Masha Kvichak
Read more about Masha
Masha Act II	Mrs. North	Christopher
Carl Kvichak	Nelson Harford	Detective and Officer

Lunch consult with lawyer friend Nelson	Neighbour boy Christopher returns Richie’s bag
Masha finds the dead boy’s letterman jacket	The affair between Masha and Nelson is revealed
READ more about the murder or WATCH it unfold	Masha apologizes “but there really is no time at all until dinner”
Blood flows from her head	Masha rolls her onto a sheet for disposal in the basement
Richie appears to Masha	Officer Keith confronts Masha about Christopher’s attempt to run away
Masha faints while the detective, Nelson, Carl, and the officer look on	Masha attempts to scrub the blood stains out of the grout

Some Mother’s Son, a new play by Smith College 2011 MFA Playwriting Graduate Darren Harned, shows a mother in crisis after her high-school son has been accused of murdering his best friend in the spring of 1963. His accuser is Mrs. Constance North, the Kvichak family’s housekeeper, who claims that she saw Richie Kvichak drown Alexander Boltwood on a sail boat at least three hundred feet away in spite of her extremely poor eyesight. Carl Kvichak, a small-town optometrist, and family friend/ lawyer Nelson Harford begin to launch a defense in line with the story Richie (whom we never actually meet) is telling: that Alex comitted suicide and he tried to stop it. The play follows Masha as she learns more about her son through items in a discarded bag returned by neighbour boy Christopher and embarks on a mission to protect her son at any cost in the face of baleful interactions with Nelson, Mrs. North, the police, her husband, and a telephone that rings over and over again. For more about this production please visit this website created by director Kendra Arimoto (Smith College 2011 MFA Playwriting Graduate): kvichak.blogspot.com

Masha Kvichak is the main character, a mother who has fiercely-protective tendencies and questionable sanity, and the element that drives this story and holds the attention of the audience. She is on stage for the entire play which takes place over just half a day. Despite the fact that the action is contained in approximately a twelve hour period, I felt it was important show her desperate attempts to turn back time and return to ten years previous by having her change through three outfits. Not only do her dresses move her from 1963 back to the “Stepford Housewife” stereotype of the 1950s, but they also show her attempt to hold things together by becoming tighter and more structured as her life and sanity fall apart. In addition to her three dresses, I also gave Masha five aprons to put on and take off throughout the show which served to heighten the tension and add to the nervous energy in the theatre. For an interview with me about my work on this production please visit: Spotlight on Kaidi Williams

The Murder of Constance North is a unique challenge offered by this script when it calls for a bottle of red wine to be smashed over her head and then for blood to cover the stage. In order to achieve the desired effect, people from almost every area of the production had to collaborate, experiment, and revise the sequence. I made a special bra for the actress that not only increased and lowered the appearance of the bosom but was also able to conceal a bulb-syringe full of stage blood. Clear tubing inserted into the syringe was then run up underneath a turtleneck and hidden in a hairstyle derived from the 1940s victory rolls. After a breakaway bottle and a blood pack were smashed on her head, Mrs.North fell to the stage with her back to the audience and began to surreptitiously press the syringe hidden at her sternum. Blood then flowed out of her head and created a puddle on the floor that grew right before the eyes of the audience. For a video of the murder please visit: Revealing Secrets

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photos by Kaidi Williams and Jessica Sabogal