NED WAYBURN’S
PROFESSIONAL STAGE
MAKEUP
THE Ned Wayburn Courses teach every form of stage makeup, for men as well as for women, and for every known character part as well as the "straight" makeup for youth. To put all the expert professional makeup knowledge into this book would be to practically crowd out everything else or so enlarge the volume as to make it cumbersome. To avoid this and at the same time meet a strong public demand, I have in contemplation a book devoted exclusively to this important subject, that shall post a world of waiting aspirants for stage honors in every detail of the art of correct makeup. Meanwhile, the subject has an important bearing on the art of stage dancing and so demands a prominent place in this present work.
I have, therefore, chosen for demonstration here the one most popular stage makeup, which is that adapted to the use of the professional stage woman in every modern theatre, opera house and music hall, and am here giving it a complete and thorough exposition. In presenting this form of makeup thus prominently, I do not wish in any degree to convey the idea that men and male youth are ignored in our studio teaching of makeup, and that our sole concern is to make the young woman presentable on the stage. This is not the fact. We teach makeup to men as well as to women, and every correct form of the art.
Do not confuse a stage makeup with the customary society makeup that milady applies in her boudoir. They are two entirely different problems.
To makeup correctly for the modern stage, with its multiple lights of great intensity and all the colors of the rainbow, requires special study of yourself individually and a knowledge of what effects the various lighting schemes will produce on the human countenance.
Three ladies standing side by side on the same stage may require three different makeups, depending upon their types, in order to appear at their best to the audience. The brunette, the blonde, the auburn-haired, each needs a different treatment, and if through ignorance or indifference any omits proper attention to a single item of the very important detail of her facial makeup, the result will be disastrous. All of which emphasizes the need of one's being properly taught on the start just how to makeup in a manner to bring out one's personality, to enhance one's beauty, and create the most pleasing appearance before her audience. We are now speaking, of course, of the woman who is to appear in a youthful part; character makeup is an entirely different proposition, with which we are not concerned here.
It is impossible to go on the stage today without makeup. Should any actress try to do so, the appearance of her features would be almost deathlike. She would be repulsive to the eyes of the audience, a condition that neither she nor the producer of the show would tolerate. The very lights that render superbly beautiful the person with proper makeup cause the bare flesh to lose its natural tints, cast shadows under the brows and above the face, create hollows where they do not exist and are not wanted, and utterly destroy the pleasing picture.
Makeup, then, is one of the first essentials to stage success, and it makes no difference how truly beautiful you may be in features and natural coloring off the stage, the fact persists—you must makeup, and makeup right.
But the uninstructed amateur, whose sole knowledge of makeup is confined to the boudoir, is very prone to overdo in her maiden attempts at stage makeup, and so disastrously decorate her face that under the unaccustomed and little understood lights of the theatre she appears hideous to the folks out in front. And this is especially true of the most beautiful type of women, who think they know, and don't.