CALLAS, GALAS

In a dressing room near the amphitheatre on Little Island, a makeup artist (James Kaliardos, standing) was pouring his attention and a wealth of beauty supplies onto a countertenor (Anthony Roth Costanzo, seated). “I chose a little of Lady Gaga’s makeup, a little of Rihanna's,” Kaliardos told Costanzo. “We have to bring the divas with us. From diva to diva.” Costanzo replied, “It’s communicable.”

- —Henry Alford

Anthony Roth Costanzo and James Kaliardos

Costanzo, the forty-three-year-old Grammy-winning singer, is following up his Little Island turn from last summer—he conceived of and sang every role in “The Marriage of Figaro”—by playing Maria Callas, or someone very much like her, in “Galas,” a comedy, written in 1983, by Charles Ludlam, the founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. The play charts the rise and fall of a charming but scandal-prone soprano whose brazen confidence ("I am music") causes her to butt heads with those in her path (the Pope: "That woman is more fatiguing than a mission from Salt Lake City").

Kaliardos was meeting with Costanzo before the show’s September opening in order to “set the look” for the Galas character. He cast a diagnostic eye at his subject and said, “It’s very ‘Are we doing Callas? Are we doing beauty? Or are we doing Ridiculous?’” The production's director, Eric Ting, who stood nearby with various assistants, suggested that Costanzo’s look be naturalistic, whereas the play’s other characters be exaggerated. “There’s also a whole conversation about embodiment,” Ting said. “And what it means to embody the character without performing gender.”