Idle Hands...The Ms-Fits' Workshop: The Play's the Thing

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Play's the Thing - L

Dress rehearsal. A chance for these nuggets to try out their costumes, break stuff, and generally wreak havoc. Here are some quick pictures. They mostly don't like standing still.

Please note Betsy Ross in 'flag' dress. Colonial boys in vests.

It was much more challenging than I expected (ain't it always the case??). So many things to do in such a short time. Given more funds and more time, I could have made AMAZING stuff (OK, at least better stuff) but I had constraints of time and money.
I have a much better understanding of what a costumer's job must be like.

Here is another colonial dress, along with the gold 'chain mail'. Also a 'Sears Catalog' pose from the silver 'chain mail.

And the next picture shows the back of a couple more colonial girl dresses.

The biggest challenge for the dresses was the expectations of the girls who are wearing them.

1 - they seemed to think 'colonial' = 'pioneer'
2 - they did NOT want poofy skirts
3 - they were uncomfortable with ties at their natural waist
(but bothered when the ties 'rode up')

All in all, I'm pretty happy. I got to take minimal measurements. I had no fittings. I'm sorta surprised they fit at ALL.
I've included pictures where I did some or all of the costume or props. Including the kid who drove me nuts with constant changes.

And here was my evening:
Yesterday I scraped together some stuff for the ice wizard kid. I stitched up the uber long legs on the white unicorn. I sewed black ears on the laser sheep girl. I sewed a tail on a pet leopard. All in about 15 minutes and while I was passing out props. Everyone needed me to tell them they looked great. And I answered interminable questions. ‘Yes, you can go to the bathroom’ ‘I don’t know which side of the stage you enter on’ ‘We don’t have a sword for you, but we can get one’, ‘I’m sorry you threw up all morning! If you feel sick again and can’t make it to the bathroom, please don’t throw up backstage’, ‘I don’t know what they have for dinner’, ‘We only have enough stick-on mustaches for the performances – you will have to pretend’, ‘Yes, your mom can cut off the parts that drag on the ground’.

Then, during their dinner break, I took the crooked wings OFF the unicorn girl and resewed them in 10 minutes. Just after I changed the presidents from their purple tunics into their caveman suits for 10 minutes and then helped them change back. Those kids are kindergarteners and cannot be trusted with safety pins.

There was dinner at rehearsal, but after I finished sewing the unicorn wings, there was nothing left. One boy offered me 2/3’s of a taquito because it was too spicy for him. Seriously.

AND I used the word 'testicles' and made a bunch of boys blush.