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The first film project Katy participated in, along with other members of The Commonwealth
Vintage Dancers, was the filming of "Ulysses S. Grant" a documentary on the life of President
Grant for The American Experience series. The program aired on PBS in April of 2002.
Katy was chosen to portray Julia Grant in a couple of reenacted scenes centered around a White House dinner party, and was contracted to make a lovely late 1860's era blue evening dress. The film-makers originally wanted to recreate the inaugural balls, making use of our dance group's most obvious talents, but the project was scaled-down to include a dinner party scene and its preparations. An extravagantly filmed dinner party was enjoyed by all (despite the fact that the goodies, though beautiful, were not edible). Katy's scenes were cut from the final film but can be seen on the website www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/grant, go to the broadband site and look for Katy in "the dress" scene as well as laying out the place cards. |
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Here is Katy in the ca. 1867 blue silk dress made for the Grant project. The dress is made of
sapphire blue silk organza over royal blue silk habotai. The trim is ivory embroidered
organza. The bodice was patterned from the 1860 ball bodice in Janet Arnold's Patterns of
Fashion 2, and the skirt was patterned on an original dress in Katy's collection.
This photograph of Katy was taken at the Returning Heroes Ball held in February of 2002. |
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Katy was called upon to portray Julia Grant getting ready for a White House dinner party |
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The next project, a documentary film titled A Murder at Harvard for which Katy, with Patri and Barbara Pugliese, provided historically costumed extras, as well as costumes and a dozen or so bonnets (after a marathon bonnet making session -- boy! we learned a lot about how to make bonnets the "right way" and the "super quick way". Glue guns can be wonderful tools). This was another American Experience> project (about the infamous 1849 Parkman murder case, the O. J. Simpson trial of its day). A Murder at Harvard premiered recently at a Boston movie theater, to a sold-out house of over 600 people, with many folks turned away at the door for lack of space. Air dates have not been set for this production. |
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Katy in a lovely ca. 1840's era cloak. |
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Katy in a lovely ca. 1840's era shawl. |
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Terry Crumb models an 1840's bonnet. |