SALT LAKE CITY — Eighteen years of experience shows that Eric Clark knows a thing or two about theatrical makeup design. In fact, you could say he has a nose for it.
But that phrase takes on a whole new meaning with one of his current job titles: Pinocchio’s nose designer.
Even Clark — who has a full-time job in Las Vegas as a hair and makeup artist for Cirque du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson One” — laughs when he hears it.
“(Designing Pinocchio’s nose) is not quite what I do every day, but it's related to that,” said Clark, whose design for the beloved puppet’s ever-growing nose will be part of Hale Centre Theatre’s upcoming production of “My Son Pinocchio,” which runs July 7-Sept. 8 on the Jewel Box Stage. “(It) is a bit different because I usually don’t do a lot of physical effects. I’ll do … prosthetics or makeup or hair or something like that, so something that actually has to move and be a magical element was a unique challenge and is sort of what drew me to it.”
Pinocchio’s story is a familiar one, especially thanks to the 1940 Disney film on which “My Son Pinocchio” is based. The stage adaptation tells the story from Geppetto’s perspective, but the nose that grows when Pinocchio tells a lie is still an integral part of the wooden puppet’s adventures.
Although Pinocchio’s nose is perhaps the most iconic piece of the story, finding the right design for HCT’s production took time. Clark, who took the project on nine months ago as a freelance job, extensively analyzed what other productions of the show have done to make the puppet’s nose grow.
“Rather than starting out with, ‘This is exactly how we want it to go,’ it was a lot more of, ‘Here’s what we don’t want and here’s where the edges of the sandbox go,’ and I enjoy working that way,” said Clark, who has twice designed all the makeup for Cirque du Soleil’s annual “One Night for One Drop” charity event as well as worked on productions for the Utah Shakespeare Festival. For HCT's nose, Clark spent hours researching different mechanical elements used in theater and film as well as putting in plenty of time to make sure the nose looked good.
“A lot of the process was more artistic, so it was a lot of going through and finding how do we want this Pinocchio to look, what type of wood do we want it to be made of, is he painted, isn’t he painted, things like that, and a lot of that was gathering research and then waiting for the director to come on and kind of starting to give a little more direction,” said Clark, who grew up in Bountiful and graduated from Southern Utah University.
Clark initially considered using an Arduino board and all sorts of actuators and hydraulics to bring the nose to life, but he quickly realized there wouldn’t be enough room inside the nose to fit all those bells and whistles.
“Once we kind of decided that wasn’t going to work — (plus) the more wire and things, in my experience, the more problems you have in a live performance — we moved away from that and we went to something that’s more physical so that you have that reliability,” Clark explained.
Although Clark doesn’t want to give too much away about the magic behind the special sniffer, he did his due diligence, including consulting a friend who builds illusions for magicians in Las Vegas to help him get to the final creation.
But when he shipped the final product off to Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy two weeks ago, he said he was shipping a little bit of “magic and wonder.”
“I spent so much of the process making sure the nose functioned and (will) do the things it has to do and not fail and be simple enough that it can be operated … , so as soon as it went out the door I thought, ‘Yeah, this is going to be an (important) thing,’” he said. “Ultimately what it comes down to is whatever you are putting onstage, does that bring an audience member in and create some sort of magic?”
Only those who see HCT’s production will nose (pun intended).
If you go …
What: Hale Centre Theatre’s “My Son Pinocchio”
Where: Hale Centre Theatre’s Jewel Box Stage, 9900 S. Monroe St., Sandy
When: July 7-Sept. 8, dates and times vary
How much: $36-$40 for adults, $18-$20 for children
Phone: 801-984-9000
Web: hct.org
Note: “My Son Pinocchio” is not included as part of HCT’s 2018 season ticket package.