#FemaleFilmmakerFriday: Hackmatack Playhouse

One of the best parts about film making is, as I may have mentioned before, all the cool people that you get to work with. Another fun part is all the place you get to go in search of locations, props, costumes, vehicles, etc. When you're working on a no-budget film, you can't afford to have things made for you, so you have to improvise, be creative, beg, and borrow. 

Yesterday, I got to go to Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick, ME, to look at costumes for our upcoming movie The Dinner Party. Located on a beautiful farm, with rolling fields framed by pine trees, it looks like a set out of Anne of Green Gables - except for the bison, milling about in the far field. Yes, Hackmatack is also a bison farm - how awesome is that?

The stage is located in an enormous barn and there's a refreshment stand that boasts of selling coffee along with the usual theater goodies. The costumes were stored in another wooden equipment shed. Autumn Allen, our leading lady for The Dinner Party, helped me sort through decades worth of dresses, suits, hoop-skirts, and outfits from every era, which Hackmatack generously allowed other theaters and filmmakers to use. The Edwardian period is pretty tricky to outfit (it's a very distinctive period), so every article of clothing helps. What didn't help was seeing the gorgeous Medieval outfits that they had on the rack: they just revived my long-dormant desire to write a an Ivanhoe movie... something I'm pretty sure the owner of Narrow Street Films would have fit over at the mere suggestion. (An Edwardian period piece on a no-budget film is one thing... but a movie involving castle sieges and jousting tournaments and knights in full armor? Yeah...)

Back to the project at hand: thanks to Hackmatack's generosity, we have a good start towards costuming our cast and I've discovered a bison farm and a new place to go see some shows. While some people may see no-budget films as daunting and more work than they're worth, the challenge is its own reward - and the by-products of discovery, creativity, and new acquaintances are the diamonds in the rough.

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Check out the Hackmatack Playhouse website for this Summer's line-up!