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With
a background in fine arts and degrees in visual arts, Erin Penney has
over 20 years of experience in stage make-up, in theatres both large
and intimate, indoors and out. After
garnering several honorable mentions in international competition for
original face painting designs, in August 2007 Erin finished second in
a field of professional face painters from ten countries in a contest
that called for morphing flags into butterfly wings (shown on the Home
page). Erin was the only American among the top three winners in this
international face and body art competition. Erin's
art
studies started by the age of five and continue
to this day –
her
first art teacher was her mother, an
award-winning fine artist and graduate of Moore College of Art and
Design in Philadelphia who served as the long-time Chair of the
Fine and Performing Arts Department at The Hun School of Princeton.
Erin took her first class in stage make-up when she was
14 at Mercer County College's Tomato Patch Visual and Performing Arts
Workshop, and completed the four years of sequential training in Hun's
studio art program before going on to visual arts studies in college.
Her undergraduate training includes studies in BFA programs at the
School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and at Long Island University's
School of Visual and Performing Arts at C.W. Post. Her master of arts
degree in Electronic
Media was earned on full
scholarship for
visual communication from
Drake
University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Des Moines,
Iowa. Erin's working background in the arts includes illustrating
internationally-distributed children's educational texts and storybooks. Make-up
and Hair/Wig Design credits for plays and musicals include outdoor
summer theatre and semi-professional regional and local theatre
productions of Kiss Me, Kate, Oklahoma, Crazy for You, Deathtrap, Pinocchio, She Loves Me, Dracula, Noises Off, Macbeth, Grease, Rumors,
and Doctor Dolittle (pictured above)
performed at facilities including the Kelsey Theatre, West Windsor, NJ,
and
the Washington Crossing State Park Open Air Theatre in Hopewell, NJ,
among
others. She
has also designed and
built specialty costumes and worked as a costumer for venues including
Six Flags Great Adventure. She has designed and built props of all
sorts for television and theatre, from the severed head of a
Shakespearean king (the Scottish one, specifically) to an
alarming-looking
but relatively harmless fire ax (for Noises
Off) to fake meals that triggered real hunger pangs in several
actors (most notably, a roasted goose sculpted for You Can't Take it With You, and two
different platters of plastic corned beef and cabbage made for Meet Me in St. Louis). Erin also
created props to enhance the display and demonstration of retail goods
sold on live TV reaching over 65 million homes on QVC, the
world's largest televised shopping network. Additional
theatrical credits include playwrighting, directing,
stage management, set design, props design and fabrication, costume
design, scenic art and set painting for professional, non-Equity
semi-professional, community, and academic performing arts companies
and facilities including McCarter Theatre Center for the Performing
Arts in Princeton, NJ, Six Flags
Great Adventure, New York's Bond Street Theatre, Sweet-Arts Studio and
Bravo Youth Theatre near Philadelphia, Trenton's Mill Hill Theatre,
The Paramount Theatre and Convention Hall on the Boardwalk in Asbury
Park,
Princeton Opera Association, Princeton Community Players, the Theatre
Guild of New Jersey, Like 40 Productions, Shakespeare '70, Actors'
NET of Bucks County, and
others. Erin has
instructed make-up, wig handling and various other stagecrafts in
workshops at the Hun School of Princeton, Notre Dame High School
in Lawrenceville, NJ, Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, Mercer
County Community College in West Windsor, NJ, and also served as an
adult degree program mentor of performing arts for Prescott College of
Prescott, Arizona. |
| In the spring of 2005, Erin entered the hyper-speed world of full-face theatrical face painting, also known as theme park style face painting. She was hired and trained by the company that provides face painting entertainers for Disney, Universal, and Anheuser-Busch theme parks worldwide. Throughout the full season, from late April through Halloween of that year, she painted the faces of thousands of people from babies to grandparents at Busch Entertainment's Sesame Place near Philadelphia, the nation's only theme park based on the award-winning television show "Sesame Street." In April of 2006, Erin started gaining international recognition as a professional face painter, creating original face art designs for open competition with the world's leading face painting artists and several of her designs were awarded honorable mentions. Within a month of her first submission, her "Wild Webs" design (above) was selected for inclusion in Snazaroo's Top 100 Faces, an invitation-only "Best of" page on the world's leading website for professional face painters. In August of 2007, she took her first top prize in international award competition, finishing second in a field of artists from ten nations, as described on this site's Home page. Erin is also proud to have her face paintings featured in promotional material for the American Cancer Society. In addition to face painting and theatrical make-up, Erin also does make-up for photography, film, and video. Kicking off the summer of ’06, Erin took part in a large national publicity stunt, backstage at New York’s Hard Rock Café on Broadway at Times Square, body painting dozens of street-strolling models as part of “National Flavors Day,” marking the debut of Jose Cuervo’s new flavored tequilas (photos below). That June, she created a swarm of zombies for Dark Oasis Pictures’ film, “Outpost: Knightsbridge” (also shown below). Erin also did period make-up for the 1950s-set narrative flashback scenes of Voices, a feature-length documentary film by Elite Television, Manchester, England, produced for Great Britain’s Channel 4 Television. |
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Rates for stage and media work are determined by consultation. Please call or e-mail regarding your project needs.
Read
on for samples of Erin’s work and insights from her
diary.
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| Driving Miss Daisy – February
2008 Maurer Productions OnStage Kelsey Theatre, West Windsor, NJ Click above for information about shows at the Kelsey Theatre. In the press photo above, Allwyn Baskin as Hoke takes the wheel for Eve Connolly as Miss Daisy. In this Pulitzer prize winning play, three actors takes us on a journey through the hearts and minds of a trio of Atlanta natives whose lives are intertwined from the years1948 through 1973. Each character ages throughout the play, with Miss Daisy starting at age 72 in 1948 through age 97 in 1973. Her son, Boolie, goes from age 40 to 65, and Hoke, Daisy's driver (and ultimately, friend), Hoke, goes from age 60 to 85. Director Dan Maurer asked Erin to create the various looks for the cast of this show. New photos from this production will be posted here soon! To read an article on this production from The Princeton Packet, click here. |
| Green Man – June
2007 Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey at Premiere Stages, Union, NJ for the National New Play Network Actor Spiff Wiegand as the title character discovered it really is pretty easy being green (from head to toe, even) with a bit of help from Erin and a couple of bady painting assistants. Photo by costumer Ingrid Proos. Additional photo on the Body Painting page, linked below. Premiere Stages is a professional Actor's Equity Theatre in residence at Kean University's School of Visual and Performing Arts in Union, NJ, dedicated to developing new works from emerging playwrights. As part of the Premiere Play Festival, playwright Jim Knable's Green Man was selected in competition through the National New Play Network for an Equity staged reading. The play was previously workshopped and read under the direction of John Pietrowski at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey in Madison who presented the piece to the national competition. John remained as the production's director through this latest phase of the play's development and asked me to help visualize this drama's mysteriously character-shifting title player, based on a so-called "vegetative diety" in Celtic mythology known as a Green Man. |
| Macbeth – April - May
2007 ActorsNET of Bucks County The Heritage Center, Morrisville, PA Top row, left to right, the Three Witches are Giz Coughlin, Susan Fowler, and Kate Couzens. Hecate, queen of the witches, is Theresa Forsyth Swartz. In the bottom row, Banquo, shown in his ghostly state, is actor Steve Lobis. He is flanked by Tess Ammerman and Tami Feist as the Weird Sister's coven-mates. Far right, Mr. Inspiration. There is a legendary curse associated with this Shakespearean tragedy that makes it a project so feared, theatre types do not even speak its proper name. Laughing in the face of superstition, I signed up for the cool and rare chance to design specialty make-up for witches and ghosts and not necessarily go with warts and hooked noses. Meanwhile, a fairly incredible series of mishaps occurred in the final two weeks before opening night including serious injuries in the cast and a slew of freaky complications which caused this production of the "Scottish Play" to be delayed two months. The show must go on (eventually)! The make-up design for the witches reflects director Cheryl Doyle's animal totem concept influencing their performances and costuming, including (top row, left to right) a lioness, a bat, and a raven for the Weird Sisters, and their equally weird kin added for group scenes, a lynx and raccoon. The design for Hecate reflects her Greek goddess namesake's status as triple goddess of the moon, shown in the trio of images of waxing and waning crescents embracing the new moon over the actress's "third eye." For Banquo, I meant to show the "echo" of his gruesome demise (garotting and head wounds) and emphasize his status as a specter, rather than literally depict every nasty wound mentioned in the script (as is done about as often as witches get warts and hooked noses). Plus, his make-up and costume change had to be done in two minutes flat! Special thanks to make-up assistants Tess, Giz, and Kelly, and also to the 13 turkey vultures that, oddly enough, wandered into suburbia and landed on my neighbor's roof one morning while these designs were in development, thereby inspiring the black, white, and blood red color palette for the creepy creatures in this production. |
| "After
several challenges from the famous curse of 'the Scottish Play,'
Actors' NET of Bucks County has opened Macbeth... the work is two months
late in reaching the stage. No problem -- a packed
opening night audience welcomed it with gusto.... Steve Lobis stands
out as Banquo -- the dining scene in which his ghost appears is done
brilliantly." Stuart Duncan
The Princeton Packet
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| It's a Wonderful Life, the Musical – November - December,
2006 Maurer Productions Kelsey Theatre, West Windsor, NJ Sharing the finale with the company, left to right in the foreground are Jesse Dubin, Zach Levine, and Rosalie Graziano as the Bailey kids, behind them is Toni Campbell as Ma Bailey. Reed Schmidt, as the youngest of the Bailey's, Zuzu, is held by Marty Berrien as George Bailey, next to Vicky Czarnik as Mary Bailey. This musical version of Frank Capra's classic film won glowing reviews and standing ovations. Director John Maurer of Maurer Productions OnStage asked me to design wigs and make-up for this complex production with action spanning four decades. In coordination with costume designer Ruth Rittmann, I developed hair and make-up looks for the many characters and tested them throughout the rehearsal process. During performances, a crew of four make-up artists and hair technicians helped the actors move through time, from 1945 to 1917, to 1929, '32, and '45 again, in two different forms - both the one George knows before his encounter with Clarence the angel, and an alternate reality where George never existed, through which he comes to understand he really is living a wonderful life. As his wife, Mary, Vicky Czarnik wore a series of custom-made human hair wigs, which helped to illustrate the various eras and circumstances of the story, from the aftermath of accidentally falling into the pool at the high school dance on her first "date" with George, through taking the plunge with him at their wedding in 1929, to the two different versions of Christmas Eve in 1945, with steps along the way. In the photo above showing the finale, Vicky as Mary wears her longest locks (c. 1945), Toni Campbell as Ma Bailey sports a wig I "painted" salt and pepper, and the grey in the hair of Marty Berrien as George is also my doing. For more photos and information on this detailed and challenging production, click here. |
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Wizard of Oz – August 2005 |
| Kiss Me, Kate – 2003 Pierrot Productions Kelsey Theatre, West Windsor, NJ Photos of the production by Diane Gaston-Phillips Big cast, two eras (Elizabethan and early 1950s) and numerous very, very quick changes. I designed make-up including specialty work and hair prosthetics, modified numerous commercial wigs and falls, supervised and instructed the company to function fairly independently during production, and trained three assistants to help with the application of specialty make-ups and the constant quick changes. I also stage managed and built props for this award-nominated production (one nom was for costume design – there is no separate award for make-up and wigs, and since my work falls within that category, I went ahead and gloated vicariously). The Thug in the fedora at center is my brother, Kurt Penney. He’s also shown below sporting sausage curls in another scene from the same production. |
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Noises Off – 2003 |
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National Flavors
Day – May 18, 2006 |
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Outpost:
Knightsbridge
– 2006 |
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Rates by Consultation. Please call or e-mail to discuss your needs. (609) 510-8939 SecondLookFacePainting@gmail.com |
| Check the link below for info on media make-up for special photography including headshots, portraits, weddings and more! |
