Buoso’s photo shoot

Brooks Firestone’s “Opera Star!” adventure continues:

Monica Yunus, Jason Slayden make sure Brooks Firestone is really dead

Heather Sterling turns Brooks Firestone into Buoso Donati, the dead man lying in Opera Santa Barbara’s “Gianni Schicchi” publicity photo shoot.

Makeup artist Heather Sterling begins Brooks’s transformation to a corpse.

While Brooks, Monica Yunus (Lauretta) and Jason Slayden (Rinuccio) were being transformed thru the magic of makeup, my first task was to create a death bead “set” at the Music Academy of the West, with the help of OSB Production Manager Rory Collins. (click on images to see ’em big)

It takes a lot of stuff to make somebody look like someone else

That tickles

Stage Manager Rory Collins dressing the “set”

Our period “set”

The makeup scene

Wiggy time

Monica Yunus gets wigged by Marisol Miller Wave

The final “Little Bo Peep” touches on Lauretta’s hair

After the lights were set and Stage Director Fenlon Lamb, Artistic Director Kostis Protopapas, Publicist Tim Dougherty and I discussed poses, I noticed Brooks looked a little too rosy for a corpse and Heather and assistant Marisol Miller Wave went  to work making him look a bit more dead. (click on images to see ’em big)

Fenlon Lamb, Kostis Protopapas & tenor Jason Slayden try out some interesting poses, or is it a new dance??

Brooks gets in a little study for his Opera Star! journal while waiting for his costume

Getting Brooks into position for the shoot

Marisol and Heather work to get Brooks’s pallor a bit more dead

Marisol work attends to the dead man’s feet

“Gianni Schicchi” is a comedy, so we all got into the spirit and the 2 professional singers had to work hard to keep from laughing, but the “amateur” Brooks kept a very professional poker face through much of the hilarity. (click on images to see ’em big)

Brooks kept his cool

Paler, paler please