#sam fleming

SF: My first story for which an editor was prepared to pay, “What The Water Gave Her” in the Fish anthology from Dagan Books, was full of imaginary beings, all of them sea creatures. I had a story in Apex Magazine, which ended up in the Best of Apex Magazine Volume 1, in which there was an imaginary friend called Hedron. I love writing about them, and I love the ambiguity inherent in their existence. Are they real? What would it mean if they were? What does “real” mean? Something I randomly said in a conversation with a friend many many years ago has always stuck with me: “There are only two of us here, this is consensus reality.” So much of what we experience is generated inside the brain, and not all brains are the same. My own perception is somewhat awry and it’s impossible for me to step completely outside that frame of reference. I love having an excuse to show what the view is like from here.

“Ludwig” almost wrote itself in response to the prompt. A call for stories about imaginary friends! I couldn’t resist. There were a lot of little bits and pieces of things I’d stashed away in the back of my head, all swarming around in search of a tale to inhabit. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of felt presence since I first read about Shackleton’s epic crossing to the Stromness whaling station. Several years ago, I participated in a scientific study about imaginary friends, because they’ve been a big part of my life and formative experiences, and I suppose it continues to niggle that somewhere my experiences with such things are recorded in fairly comprehensive detail. Mad scientists … not so much, because I know plenty of scientists and not one of them is “mad” in the stereotypical sense of cackling “It’s ALIVE!” during thunderstorms, but shove an academic title on a villain and Bob’s your estranged relative.

DV: Your descriptions of the titular character, Ludwig, are both vivid and surreal. Did you have a visual inspiration for Ludwig, or was he concocted solely from your imagination?

SF: I’m synaesthetic. My senses are all cross wired into each other and especially my proprioception, which is the sense that tells you where your body is in space without you having to look. A lot of my descriptions are surreal, because I’m reverse engineering what I think might resonate with other people but keeping a certain synaesthetic gloss. As for Ludwig in particular, I first saw a short video of a featherstar on twitter a couple of years ago and was utterly mesmerised (you can see it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRej1VKDgcE, and there’s another good one here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyketlthVWg). I’m not sure I could ever invent something that is weirder than creatures that already exist in the ocean. My first degree was in marine science, and I’ve done my fair share of peering at sea beasts, but I’ve never seen anything move like that, and dearly hope to see one in the flesh one day. I merely added the light and colour that, for me, inhabit that movement. And a bunch of extra arms.

DV: Your story includes descriptions of a handful of imaginary acquaintances. Were there any others that you would have liked to include that were cut for space, or others that you have thought of descriptions for now?

SF: There was a blobby, marshmallow thing called Henrietta that didn’t make the cut, and a flock of butterflies with razor-sharp wings that formed the shapes of other creatures, a bit like the fish in Finding Nemo. Honestly, I could probably talk about imaginary friends until my audience wandered off in search of a change of subject. I feel like I can reach out and open a door, somewhere off to my right and slightly up and in, and the next in line will step up. Maybe there’s a giant cosmic stash bag of creatures looking for a footprint in the world. There have been a surprising number of studies into imaginary friends, and what they look like/what they mean. One child had an entire herd of nappy-wearing cows. Another had a group of pre-schoolers, with whom she shared a language and a birthday. None of the imaginary friends in Ludwig are too far removed from what has been reported by scientists working in the field. Except Ludwig himself, of course.

DV: If you had an imaginary friend growing up, what was their name, and what were they like?

SF: I had loads. I had a roster. I had two friends, one a seal and one a dolphin, who came swimming with me on Thursday afternoons after school and taught me how to hold my breath for longer and swim faster. For a while I believed I was a selkie. I experienced an array of beings who donned vaguely human forms and told me secrets, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything about them or they would be angry. I had one who didn’t even try to conform to the conventional laws of physics, and who was better at maths than I was. Sometimes I would look at a stuffed animal instead of this being when talking to them, because it was easier on the eye. I have had more imaginary friends in my life than I have had actual physical ones, probably, and not all of them were friendly. I don’t know why, or where they came from. I don’t remember deliberately inventing any of them. More often than not they didn’t have names, because I didn’t talk about them, and we knew when we were talking to each other or about each other, so what was the purpose of names? They were invariably older than me, and seemed to know more about everything except really simple things, like why anyone would put ketchup on food, and if we were prepared to eat stuff that didn’t taste nice without ketchup, then why not make everything taste nicer by putting ketchup on it? Or hats. Why hats? I remember that question. “Why are hats?” They probably wondered why we didn’t put ketchup on hats, given that apparently some people are prepared to eat them when reality diverges sufficiently from expectation. My imaginary friends were even weirder than I was!

DV: What’s on the horizon for you?

SF: I’m going to my first WorldCon this year, in Dublin, which is exciting. I have a story called “Pretty Little Vampires” in the Not All Monsters anthology from Rooster Republic Press, due for publication next year. There aren’t any imaginary friends in that one. I have a few other pieces looking for a home, including a novella, and am working on a couple of novels while collecting notes and research for a third. I have hypergraphia, which isn’t nearly as helpful for fiction as you might think, but which does mean I’m always writing. At least when I’m not saving the world.

Björnson spent much of her career designing for opera and ballet, coming to musicals later in life. She passed away in 2002 and Fleming, having joined the production in 1989, has been the definitive voice in the room when it comes to costumes ever since—from building new costumes for new cast members to arranging repairs for the mountains of hand-sewn beading.

“They always turn out slightly different,” says Fleming of Phantom’s costumes. “You’re always making them for different body types, different heights.” But Björnson believed in evolution. “She was interested in developing the show,” says Fleming. “Over time, we have done five different new sculpts for the Phantom mask itself because she kept wanting it to be more interesting.

I’m sure if Maria were still alive today she’d still be improving the show because she was just that kind of person.”Despite variations and evolutions, every costume piece worn in Phantom originated in Björnson’s design. Here, Fleming shares the details of the designs, fabrics, and more that create the onstage grandeur.

ON HANNIBAL: Maria had very specific fake operas to design and she wanted them all to look different. Hannibal has its own color palette, which is red and green and gold with a little bit of purple, and - as per Maria - always little bits of black shadowing everywhere. 

ELISSA: When Carlotta comes out of the wings, she takes up almost the entire stage all by herself as divas did back then. Her skirt is probably six feet wide. Piangi, when he goes over to take her hand, he’s just trying not to step on her skirt. There’s these hand-sewn faceted flat glass jewels called lochrosens and she’s just covered in them - also cabachons. We have a full-time stitcher on the show for repairs.

HANNIBAL: There are so many jokes within Phantom that are inside jokes about opera. It’s like How to Torture Your Tenor 101. Maria makes him climb the elephant with like 75 pounds of gear on it in a 12-foot cape. Opera tenors, like divas, are never happier than when they have a huge costume so no-one can get near them. But he mostly spends the scene carrying the cape around instead of getting to leave it all spread out on the stage.

ON THE PHANTOM’S LAIR:

DEGAS: What Maria had told us about the Degas girls is that she really preferred the statue of “The Little Dancer”. The ones that director Hal Prince likes are the ones that are in Degas’ paintings of ballerinas backstage, for their skirts are all much fuller. We do it like the statue as opposed to the sketch here.

THE PHANTOM’S MASK: There are a whole lot of people on planet Earth who want to take credit for it being a half mask instead of a full mask. Maria, of course, cause it’s in her sketches that way, she says, oh no, it was my idea. Michael Crawford insisted it was his idea that he asked for it and then she changed it. But actually what happened is he wanted it on the other side. After she saw a run-through, she realized it really did need to be on that side, so she was happy for that input. But he didn’t actually ask for it to be a half mask instead of a full mask. That was her idea all along. He should be half monster, half Valentino, which is why the side of his face is so made up. So he looks kind of like a silent movie era actor with all that very stylistic, a little to perfect makeup kind of thing.

THE PHANTOM: Another reason to take a look at the novelette: For all of his cruelty and immaturity, the Phantom is supposed to be the most elegant thing onstage. His suit is made of silk. So it has this sort of nice, luminescence onstage. The fit, of course, always has to be like paint. He’s the most sort of athletic person onstage, too. he has all these long extensions with his arms, dance-related movements, crawling around the floor. In the book, it mentions how he is very popular with the local artisans, like the wuy who’s his tailor. The hat slouching down, he would only go out to get to the tailor’s just before closing time when it was dusk with his hat pulled really low. So the cape and the hat are very much described in the book because he’s hiding basically.

CHRISTINE’S DRESSING GOWN: Christine in her silk negligee is supposed to be fairly risque because he’s been watching her get dressed and undressed for months apparently. And that he steals her basically in her nightgown. And that she sort of looks frail and defenseless.

CHRISTINE’S WEDDING DRESS: Maria draws people who have giant hands and feet, but who are extremely short-waisted, but also long legs. Over time we’ve always had to be really clever about figuring out ways to make even short people look like that sketch, even though they don’t have those long legs and that tiny waist. You can’t necessarily get 18 ruffles on that skirt.

ON THE MANAGER’S SCENES:

MADAME GIRY 1: The Madame Giry character in the little novelette is actually an usher. And she’s working at the opera, and she lives on the tips from the Phantom. She’s very protective of him because she only has one good black dress - which most poor ladies did back then - and it’s starting to crumble because it’s slik. She needs a new dress and she’s franatic that she won’t be able to work at the opera unless she has her own black dress. When people soft of try to ask her stuff about him, she won’t give them any information because she’s being very protective of him because that’s her only source of income. Madame Giry as a ballet mistress is completely different from the one in the book, but she still has that one black dress. She’s very severe.

MADAME GIRY 2: She wears a chatelaine on her skirt, she’s supposed to have two keys on it. One of them is to the room where the ballet shoes are stored since they were so valuable. The other one is the key to the reception room where the ballerinas were allowed with their chaperone, which Madame Giry is supposed to represent, to receive gentlemen visitors after the show. What they really wanted to do is see legs because it was completely verboten. Madame Giry’s job, of course, is to make sure that nothing else happened becuase what good is a pregnant ballerina to you?

THE MANAGERS: André is the artistic one and Firmin is the financial one so they make a good yin-yang combination. André’s suit is velvet and Firmin’s is a much plainer wool. André has much fancier brocade on his lapers, Firmin has plain file. Firmin’s vest is much less interesting, André’s, of course, is fancy. André’s wig is more curly and artistic looking, Firmin’s hair is slicked back. And see how he has the little red nose? They’re saying he was originally conceived as a sloppy drunk - and it’s usually not played that way any more.

CARLOTTA’S RED DRESS: That’s one of the nicest sketches maria did. The bodice of the front of the skirt of that is a costume that’s a red reproduction brocade from this place in London called Hopkins. There’s supposed to be ten ruffles on that dress, which are pleated, on the underskirt.

ON IL MUTO: Maria had very specific fake operas to design and she wanted them all to look different. Hannibal has its own color palette, which is red and green and gold with a little bit of purple, and - as per Maria - always little bits of black shadowing everywhere. il Muto, on the other hand, which is like her little fake Mozart opera, is all pastels accented with black. So it’s all lavender, and pink, and pale blue, and yellow.

JEWELER’S MAID: The Meg design is lavender, white and black. That’s the jeweler’s assistant. You can sort of see the swatches in the lower left hand corner and she she’s part of the same opera.

SYLVAN GLADE: Maria was very concerned with silhouette; she wanted all those girls to look like they had very hourglass figures. She was always wanting to pad the ballerinas, hips and bosom. It’s really difficult when you’ve got 16 pounds of foam rubber on your chest to do some of those arm movements, so we have cut that way back over time.

ROOFTOP: We call it the Rooftop dress even though you’ll only see it for one split second when she comes out at the very end of Act 1 in Il Muto to take her bows. I don’t know that we’ve ever, ever found the perfect fabric for that cape, ever because Maria wants it to really flutter but she also wanted it to be like a jacquard fabric and have a lot fo interest built into it. but she also wanted it to be that odd, not really blue, not really green colour. And so for years we’ve tried different fabrics. They use a piece of bright turquoise silk charmeuse. It’s over that great big Rooftop dress and she’s out there on that big old empty stage with nobody but Raoul and you just want it to be as interesting as you can possibly make it. And it can’t be too heavy because he has to pick her ip and she has to run around.

ON MASQUERADE: Normally when you do a Fancy Dress ball there’s an overriding theme, like somebody deciding the theme is Versailles and they dress as a topiary. For this one the themes are all over the map. A lot of the dancers were inspired by natural elements like flowers, butterflies, things like that. The rest of them were all meant to be slightly exotic.

STAR PRINCESS: Carlotta and Christine are directly contrasted to eachother. I call this one Dawn because it ombres from blue down to pink, like the sun’s about to rise. Her skirt is covered in stars and she has a little half moon crescent on her crown. She’s the ingenue. She’s newly engaged. She’s all new and sparkly like the sun rising to dawn.

SPIDER DANCE: Carlotta is covered in spiders and bats. She’s black and purple with silver rhinestones, but notice how she’s got a bat on her bosom and bat wings, and a bat on her head. It’s kind of like a take-off on “Queen of the Night” because of course she’s a coloratura soprano. That’s probably Carlotta’s favourite role. She has her dressmaker make her this fancy thing to show off her legs. That’s the other thing about Masquerade cause it’s a Fancy Dress Ball as opposed to just a masked ball. Because you were masked, and nobody knew who you were you could be risqué.

FAN LADY: Notice how similar this is in style to Carlotta’s Masquerade costume. becuase Maria thought she was being really clever, she had that costume made really dark and she, the fan lady, the girl who was in female singer number two tracks was supposed to always be the Carlotta first understudy, so that she has a costume that looks very much like Carlotta so that she can just wear her own costume in Masquerade when she goes on. But of course, has any company ever done that? No. But that’s why they’re so strikingly similar.

TRIANGLE GIRL: The Triangle Girl is just an excuse to show off some girl’s legs.

BONBON RIBBON: This one is actually the swing costume, which we call Ribbon Candy. It’s one of the hardest costumes of the show to make actually, because Maria wanted all the panes in the bodice to line up exactly with the colours on the tights. She also wanted where there’s yellow in the skirt to line up with the yellow in the tights and the bodice. But, you’re doing circular ruffles stitched to straight panes of things.

HUSSAR: Raoul has the most boring costume of all, but it’s very standard. If you go to a Fancy Dress Ball in the UK, even today, you’re going to find somebody dressed in their military garb with tons of gold braid on it.