Charles

Hey! Can I get spacedolls, but as my designs?

My beautiful broken doll girly <3 Her hair is supposed to kinda look like Hanger Theatre's Jane, but blue ↓

Thx u!! (ur art is scrumptious. Nom nom nom nom NOM NOM🍴🍴🍴) (My Ricky is the same as always<3)

Thanks for your support!! Always love drawing your guys. Very colorful!!

Hiya, Yannick! I have a question that I've had since I first watched the boot of RTC you're in, was Ricky's hat a just a design choice or did it have meaning?

ps: you're genuinely the best Ricky Potts ever, you probably get this all the time but as a trans, queer, disabled youth who loves RTC I felt seen when I saw you on stage :-D

Hello, friend!

First, thank you. I never expected to hear back from the people this was all for, but I always did it for you and everyone else like you and myself who never had a chance like that to dream big. There are parts of that experience I haven’t been public about because I don’t want to distract from the importance of physical accessibility, but this is a story worth telling. And you asked for it. So we’re gonna discuss how the hat was not a choice, but a racially charged dilemma.

Important context - I am an indigenous/person of color whose hair is somewhere between a 3C and a 4A curl type (feel free to google a curly hair number guide for reference), which means a lot of the time it has a mind of its own, and sometimes it’s an Afro situation where the kink needs more air, sometimes the curls are coily-er and look like Slinkies (old school toys that are basically helical springs). I had my hair in double twists when I originally got there, and during rehearsals took them out and was rocking my natural fro look.

So, the time comes to film any projections used for the show, which includes the space cats “dance” sequence during the SABM costume change. I had heard an idea of wanting to do a mow hawk sort of situation or something with my hair, though no one ever talked to me directly to discuss my POC hair and the condition it would need to be in for whatever style they have in mind. So what happens? I come in to get ready for the projections, and the hair stylist sits me down…frazzled. I ask, what is wrong. The stylist starts touching my hair in the kind of way people do when they don’t know what to do with something, picking up pieces with the ends/tips of the fingers and lifting it around to make judgements, letting it fall back to place on its own. If you cannot tell based on my description of this, it is easy to gather that the stylist has not worked safely with this texture before (which is heavily concerning to me given an all Black play was just in that theatre, and this hair person runs everything in that place).

I get told something along the lines of “this is not a workable texture” and asked if they can just spray some water on it really quick for the curls to “come back”. For those of you who do not have hair like me, it is important to understand that that is not how my hair works. So, I explain: I would need to get into a shower, stand under pounding water, apply various creams, massage and condition the hair, then it has to air day, then after that there’s oil, then the finger curling to the portions that decided to stay like an Afro after all of this, et cetera et cetera. I’m basically making it clear that that isn’t possible.

But they are fixated on a certain look, and the projections have to be filmed NOW.

So what does the hair person start to do? Heat. Up. A. Curling. Iron. To. Force. My. Afro. Into. Artificial. Curls. There are several problems with this idea, including the fact that recording this on the projector makes a silhouette we have to mimic every night -I’m a dramaturg ooo- and if the look looks that way because you heat-pressed an afro last minute, we’re gonna have to do this EVERY NIGHT. I won’t be able to mimic it naturally. Which I explain to them. I also ask the stylist, “before you start, I’m wondering where you’re heat protectant spray is?” For context: it doesn’t matter what hair type you have, anyone applying heat to their hair should use a protectant of some sort. It’s not healthy to fry your head, your hair will chip off. So I ask for where this spray is, and the stylist who does every show in this theatre before and after this production looks me in the face and goes, “what is that?”.

At this point, I feel like everything I’ve brought up for constructive feedback has been shot down, so I have no choice but to watch this person fry my head, cover it in pins, and let me go to the recording area. So, I do. And we start recording. But I am unable to focus on the choreography they were teaching for the projections, and my energy wasn’t at 100%. You could say, I was in the middle of an anxiety attack. So, the film and hair people have to leave the room, I try to explain all of this to everyone and start taking the pins out of my hair because I can’t handle it anymore (I’ve faced a lot of bad things regarding my hair and so since a kid I’ve gotten nauseous when these things happen. I was feeling like throwing up so I started taking pins out) and no one knows what to do. So, I get creative after some room deliberation.

“What about a hat? My man’s trying to be noticed by everyone anyways. A big heated-curly mowhawk not getting fun attention from the choir doesn’t add up, and being a cool guy with a backwards cap adds an edge that makes me look like I don’t really care what people think. It’s also something that doesn’t require heat, or stylists. No one has to touch my hair again, the projection stays consistent because it’s a hat, everybody wins?”

The director says she can’t decide without clearance from the costume person, walks out of the room to have a phone call about it, costume person says a hat is fine, ends up designing a new hat for the SABM change so I have one then, too.

I say this not to discourage those who want to dream, or to make professionals feel bad. I say it because you asked, and because I care about you. And anyone who reads this. Because it’s so important to take care of yourself. No matter if you’re being given an “opportunity”, that doesn’t mean you need to stop respecting yourself. That doesn’t mean where you work is allowed to be physically unsafe. That doesn’t mean they get to destroy your natural hair for the sake of a projection. You should always, ALWAYS put yourself before anything anyone tells you “needs to happen” in order for you to get your dream. Just because it’s always been exclusionary, doesn’t mean being hate crimed “needs to happen” in order for you to get to Broadway.

I hope you can still appreciate my Ricky despite the things that almost got in the way of him being able to support you. I hope the fandom doesn’t forget about my Ricky. I hope history doesn’t forget that Ricky was disabled. I hope hair stylists can learn what heat protectant spray is before they learn to use heat tools. I hope you can still dream after all of this, and I hope you know that you are loved and deserve to be appreciated for exactly who you are.

Thank you so much once again, for appreciating my performance, and for asking. I hope you’re doing well.

Can I get my Ricky design in his SABM outfit?

If u need my drawing of him again, just lmk and I can send it to u 😺

You got one totally radical bachelor man there. Always a joy to draw him again!!