Costuming a Show

The entire cast (myself 6th in from the right)

Hoo boy.

Myself as Bambi/Princess Kickapoo

For the past few weeks, I've been in a show.  Not only have I been in the show, but I choreographed half of it and have managed to throw together 16 costumes for our spring musical: Curtains.  The total inventory included 6 "Kansasland" dresses (pattern found here), 5 "Thataway" saloon girl dresses (here, C), 3 men's vests (here), 1 blue dress for "Tough Act to Follow" (here), 1 Madam Marian dress (here, A), and 1 Princess Kickapoo outfit.

"C'mon honey, we need to do Thataway, rightaway"

 I have to admit, I think the "Thataway" costumes (despite not being entirely finished) were my favorite.  I thoroughly enjoyed having an excuse to wear giant feathers

I'm sorry your costume doesn't fit right Niki, but in my defense, we're all "In the Same Boat."

If I have learned one thing from this experience, it's that when you find yourself with down time months ahead of the show, use it to do a lot of work.  After 3 consecutive all-nighters before opening night and still having dresses not hemmed, ruffles not getting sewn on skirts, and my own costumes not done until 3 hours before curtain, I wish I had spent a little more time earlier in the production doing bigger things instead of tiny building blocks.  It may not have been my best work, but at the end of the day, everyone had a costume, and none of them completely fell apart.

Chilling backstage

So one of my favorite things is foreshadowing in costumes.  As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and I didn't think to take pictures of most of the details before we put all the costumes away.  I put a green front panel on my prairie dress for when I was a very green Princess Kickapoo later, Niki got the same blue material front panel that matched her blue dress later, and Georgia had a red gingham front panel since she spent most of the show in her red dress.

Speaking of the red dress, I will admit, I did some genius work with it, even if it wasn't perfectly executed.  So a short summary of Curtains:  Jessica Cranshaw, who plays the leading lady Madam Marian in the less-than-great show of "Robbin' Hood" dies mysteriously onstage after the opening night finale, and is controversially replaced with the show's lyricist, Georgia Hendricks.  Since the two actresses playing Madam Marian had different dress sizes, in order to only make one dress, I didn't install a zipper, took the back in by three inches on either side, then sewed in ribbon loops to make a laced back.  This way, the different measurements of the actresses could be accommodated without having to make two separate dresses.  

Also, gingham printed fabric is very thin and does not handle the stress of movement well, so almost everyone had armpit holes in the prairie dresses by the end of the run, but those weren't visible to the audience, so I didn't worry about them so much, but it would've probably been a good idea to either add more fabric, or to reinforce a bunch of the seams with some iron-on interfacing.  I didn't line any of the costumes, since everyone would be wearing appropriate undergarments anyway.

I could go on for days about this project, what went right, what went wrong, what I would've done differently, etc., but at the end of the day I managed to, for the most part, costume a show.  And I'm probably never going to do it for free again.

Directing a Show

Directing a show is probably the most challenging thing I've done so far, but it was also one of the most rewarding.

So the show I directed was Vintage Hitchcock: A Live Radio Play.  Instead of treating it like a serious retelling of the Hitchcock films, I decided that what I wanted to do was to give the audience a look behind the scenes into what happens during any production of any show.  Being an actor and former dancer, I realized that by the end of the show, my fellow actors and I have our own inside jokes and there's an entirely different story happening backstage.  I thought how unfortunate it was to the audience that they never get to see that, so I wanted to bring that on the main stage.  The fact that it was in the form of a 1940's radio show was just icing on the cake.

When it comes to the 1940's, the style of the day is very important.  While the gentlemen basically only had to wear a higher waistline for their pants, the ladies had a much more complicated costume scheme.  I had a specific idea in mind for what I wanted the jewelry and accessories to look like, and having a limited budget, I decided to make them.  Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of everything, but I did get most of them.

Painting white orchids lavender.

One of my actresses decided she wanted to portray a snooty Hollywood starlet type who, even though she never had a real gig, decided she was better than everybody else.  I lent her one of my own purple dresses, and I figured if anyone should sparkle, it would be her.  I used an iridescent purple watercolor on the inner bits of the orchids so they wouldn't all blend together.  I ended up giving her a set of pearls with AB finished crystals between each one to make sure she glittered with every movement.

Brooch and Bracelet

I attempted to hot glue a bead identical to the one in the bracelet to a ring back, but the glue didn't like the metal too much.  We found a way to make it work, but I forgot how we did it in all the general hecticness.

The "peach set" was another favorite of mine. I found these really pretty connector beads, but thinking they were too plain, hot glued a flattened bead cap to the center.  I made drops with pearls and used those both in the earrings and in the matching necklace.  I had intended to make a seashell brooch similar to this one, but time ran short on me.

 I also was interested in trying to make fake Bakelite.  Unfortunately, I didn't have access to colored resin, so I improvised with red polymer clay.  We didn't end up using it since the actress I made it for had her own set of beautiful diamond and pearl earrings.

As far as the set goes, I knew from the beginning I wanted a blue-based gray.  I think the most exciting part of being the director was knowing that I was able to make those decisions.  I was backstage for most of the show, so unfortunately, I wasn't able to get many pictures of the completed set.  I picked a few posters from popular movies to put on the walls.  I promised some pin-ups, so I made sure I included Ziegfeld Follies and Moon Over Miami in there.  I added in The Lodger since that was one of the plays in the show, and one of my personal favorite movies is The Great Dictator, so I didn't hesitate to get that one in there.

My wonderful production team.

I could go on and on about the leadership skills I learned, the patience I acquired, and the teamwork I helped throw together, but that might have to be its own separate post.  Meanwhile, have some assorted pictures from the show.  You can probably tell which ones were from dress rehearsal and which ones were from the actual show based on set dressings and people present.

I do have to say that at the end of the day, this was one of the best experiences of my life.