Wordless Wednesday: A Pack of Wolves

Musical: Babylonian Style

It's that time of year again!

The Musical both exhausts and invigorates me. This time around, through a series of circumstances I have found myself more firmly in the driver's seat than ever before. At my first school here in Aus, I was part of a well oiled team headed up by the Drama and Music teachers where I was but a lowly Maths type. I mean, who knew Maths teachers had a creative bone in their body!!!?? With my years of experience in theatre, but not wanting to step on anyone's toes, I put up my hand for costumes. And fell in love with the art form.

I have been happily doing costumes since 2007 but this year my narrow focus was to expand. The primary music teacher left to have a baby and our new music teacher, whilst enthusiastic, collegial and an unquestionably gifted musician, confessed to a lack of confidence in the 'acting' part of the Musical process. Somehow, in the initial meetings I got myself involved in rewriting the script and shortly afterwards they decided on a double cast, meaning I was needed to direct one set of actors.

This has proved to be a joy and a pleasure but, unfortunately, having concentrated on this direction for several weeks now, it was suddenly pointed out to me that I had three short weeks to pull the costumes together.
AUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!!! (don't panic!!!!!.....)

So that is why I find myself on a Friday night, contemplating the construction of the Abyssinian king's crown.

Wish me luck with that.......

Hamburger and Fries!

 The all singing, all dancing, fast food musical opened on Wednesday night!

At the risk of getting myself into all sorts of trouble with posting pictures of students, here is a brief snapshot of the opening night of the musical.

I have since put a logo on the front of the french fries box which is a whole other story as I managed to seal up the inside of the costume by not using an ironing board and therefore melting the two lining sheets of plastic together so that the poor girl couldn't get into her costume until I cut it apart. As a result the inside of the thing is shredded but hey! It only has to last for one more performance :-)

The last photo I love because these two were so professional. The young man is one of the most lovely, solid young fellows I've ever had the pleasure to deal with, and that's not just because I know his mum! He has a girlfriend (who found this whole kissing scene very difficult) but when asked by the director to go in for the kiss, there was minimum fuss and the two of them did it in a very businesslike, though believable in the context of the story, manner! I was impressed.

The Burger costume has caused me some grief as we cannot stop it from dragging at the front and falling forwards through the song. At the end of the day I supposed it doesn't really matter but I would have liked to solve the problem. Last night we spent an hour sewing loops onto the back of the front bun, so the ties from behind could go through the front loops as well. It made absolutely zero difference. Oh well. Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated. The problem is that the front bun is so much heavier than the back one.

I have also yet to find an adhesive which works effectively on the fuzzy material, to secure the sesame seeds. I am constantly picking up a trail of them from the stage and surrounds after the show. I suppose I should have sewn them on.....

So after tonight, I can pack up the sweatshop again and say farewell to the theatre for another two years. I really should try and get involved in some amateur theatrics around town myself sometime. My own family does not count. That is more like soap opera.

Hamburger City

Yes, the burger construction has begun! Here are the constituent parts: 

I bought some stretchy, fluffy polar fleece (called Husky) for the bun, found some old red knit fabric for the tomatoes and green dance satin for the lettuce. I also bought a darker brown polar fleece with the idea of creating the hamburger patty but as I'm progressing I'm thinking the girl wearing the bun can be dressed in brown, a metaphorical patty.

Here is my first night's work. 

I covered and stuffed the top half of the bun, created some cheese slices and the tomato halves (still to be stuffed in this photo). I started to wrestle with the lettuce. How to make it leaf like and yet self supporting? The cheese slices are interfaced with  a piece of thin plastic (the type you use for wrapping delicate parcels for transit) to help them stand up on their own but that was not going to work with gathered lettuce fabric. I have ended up sewing florist's wire to the inside edges of the lettuce leaves. 

Here it is before I turned the leaf.

Here is the prototype turned, pleated and sewed in half from behind.

I'm hoping it will be enough. Whilst writing this I am wondering about some heavier duty interfacing, like buckram (used for making hats). I may try this on the pieces near the neck edge and use this one near the bottom where it can just hang.

 By the end of yesterday I had: covered the second bun, stuffed and sewn up the tomatoes, wired the lettuce and tried several protypes for attaching the shoulder straps. 

This proved to be challenging so I've gone back to attaching the fillings :-)

The show is two weeks away and I still have to start the bag of chips (french fries) costume. Fortunately we have managed to farm out a most of the shirts to other teachers and parents. There are still buttonholes to make and buttons to attach but I'm not getting too stressed yet. 

School starts again on Monday :-(

It 'Seams' I Have Some Sewing To Do

It's that time again! The school musical is upon us and once more in a fit of creative stupidity I have volunteered to work on costumes.

This time around, I was lulled into a false sense of security, or maybe a real sense of inadequacy, when the Home Ec teacher ( a sewing whizz) also volunteered. 'Great', I thought, 'at least with an expert on board I won't have to make all the decisions.'

Wrong.

Lulled as I was, it took me some time to notice that not very much was happening regarding costumes. To be fair, the director also 'lulled' me when she said that the costumes would be 'easy' and that part of the time they would wear their own clothes. By the time I had realised what we needed to do; met with the Home Ec teacher and taken on board her ideas; seen the logo and realised the colours were all wrong; asked for the logo/sets to be redesigned colourwise and decided on a plan; I was just in time to notice that we had less than a month until the performance! How did that happen? I was sure that last time the show had been 3-4 weeks after the holidays. This year it is in week 2!!!!

(Oh and just to clarify, we are now entering the second week of the holidays).

So what do we need to do? Well, there are 15 fast food restaurant 'uniforms' to create. The 6 boys will wear red trousers, yellow shirts and black aprons. The 9 girls (yes, NINE!!) were originally going to wear princess line, button down, panelled dresses in black and red/yellow/or orange with white aprons. The time line check forced a very quick rethink on that!

My next plan was: buy red/orange and yellow T Shirts for the girls and sew some one colour, one hour, A line, pullover shift dresses, probably in black. Then I felt worried about the black and thought red, which meant yellow T Shirts, so I went on the hunt for yellow T Shirts. There were none to be found.

What I DID find though were some lovely red mens' chinos for $7.50 a pair at the outlet store! I bought up their supply, praying desperately that the random sizes could be made to fit our lads (this still remains to be seen). Next I found the cutest red flip skirts for $4.95 each! So I bought up 10 of them too. The tops are my next challenge.

I had planned to make shirts on the serger for the boys so I figured we could do the same for the girls so they all had tops in the same colour which would at least look like a corporate uniform.

I had thought to use these two patterns for the girls and boys respectively, until I realised how many buttonholes I/we would need to do. So now I am contemplating sewing up the fronts so the shirts go on over their heads, thus eliminating the need for buttons, but I am not sure it will work with the girls' pattern. Next step: make some prototypes.

Once all this has been decided, I have another 4 teachers willing to sew up one or two shirts each so we should be able to knock them off reasonably quickly. The Home ec teacher has agreed to take responsibility for the aprons (see girls' pattern above).

So that only leaves me the vexing issue of how to create both a hamburger and french fries costume in the time remaining. We looked online of course and you Americans have all manner of ready made costumes available whilst we Australians do not. Unfortunately the shipping costs to Aus will be ridiculous so that is out (not to mention the time factor).

I am hopeful that we can construct something like this:

or this:

although Himself is determined that I should be aiming for something like THIS! Sanity, blood pressure and marital/collegial harmony will determine the eventual outcome. Stay tuned!

Man Of Steel the Musical: Now With Added Sewing!

Finally got some photos at the theatre last night. Firstly, here's the all-in-one dress that looks like a shirt/ skirt combo, that I did for the Lois Lane character. This came from an old late 70s early 80s Simplicity pattern which I'd never got around to making for myself.I didn't like the jacket included in the pattern so I did this one instead.

I still need to get a good shot of it! Unlike the Annie extravanganza, we left the chorus kids to get their own costumes. As a result there was far less sewing for me to do. I did have to add a little length to a few dresses:and make up a full circle skirt or two (that's one in the background there in the blue). But my main headache was the outfit for 'Olga' who 'vonts to rule ze vorld'! When she first brought in the costume (an op shop bargain), it was an above the knee 'little black dress' which she paraded up and down and we thought would probably 'do'. We had ideas of a fur coat and so thought the dress was not overly important. Eventually we settled on the fur stole which meant the dress was more visible, and then the day of the dress rehearsal was upon us and 'Olga' started moving. In dismay we watched the fitted dress make its way higher and higher up 'Olga's thighs!!!! Emergency!!!!
I thought quickly and announced 'deep chiffon frill'??????
"Do it!" the director shrieked and I was off to Spotlight post haste, tearing through the doorway at 5.28pm, just in time to purchase the material. I tried valiantly to gather the stuff on the overlocker, and, although it did gather, it was nowhere near enough to give the weight of fabric I was looking for so it was back to the old time tried and true methods of basting and manual gathering. *sigh*. At 3am I had finished the job (I'd also finished the jacket on the same night). Everyone was very pleased with the result and declared the dress much improved by the addition. That night I watched with bated breath to see if the frill hung alright on stage. I had left it open at the back to give her leg room and I wasn't sure how it would look. It wasn't too bad. But again, as we watched in horror, the back seam began to creep open....higher and higher.....By the final curtain, Olga's virtue was only just covered! She was blissfully unaware as to how high the split had 'run' and assured me it would be fine. Her friend quickly informed her of the severity of the situation, "Duuuuude! You can almost see your BUTT!!!!"
Hurriedly she disrobed and handed the offending garment over. Now what was I supposed to do?
Obviously, redoing the seam would have been pointless as she would have just split it open again. After some consultation with the Strange Scottish Girl, I decided to put a reverse pleat into the gap. I had just done one on the back of the red skirt (pictured above) and in the end, the dress was only a costume, so I made it up as I went along. Happily, as you can see from the pictures, Olga is now decent and yet still flexible :-) Result!!

Oh and this is what I found on the end of my file of shots from the theatre. I ask you. It's a miracle I'm still sane....

Crafty Tuesday: A Stage Jacket

I've been busy sewing for the school musical this week. We're doing 'Man of Steel', a spoof on Superman, and this is the jacket I've made for the Lois Lane character...Rita Street. I also did a matching shirt/skirt dress which I have yet to shoot. This is a terrible picture as I had to take it without flash. I'll try and take a better one in the daylight.

The fabric is a faux suede which is alternately delightful and hideous to work with. I love the structure and weight of the material but you can't iron it directly with the result that, when asked, Himself pronounced the resulting garment 'rather lumpy'. It doesn't help that I left the iron at the theatre today :-)

Now to move on to my next project. The villainess of the piece wears a tight 'little black dress' with fur stole, Russian hat and long black gloves. When she first brought the dress to us we thought it was fine, as indeed it is when she is stationary. Unfortunately the moment she begins to move it starts to creep up her thighs. Waaaay up. Not appropriate :-) I am about to attempt to attach a length of gathered chiffon to the bottom of the thing in order that her modesty be preserved.

Wish me luck!

As always, Crafty Tuesday happens over at Carrie's place today. Click over and see what people have to share.

Because I Still Really Miss It

School is back and Lord knows I am right up to my neck in it but.....I can't help a bit of nostalgia having received a whole disk of photos from our official 'photographer'. And yes I know I shouldn't be showing faces but I am so over that anonymity thing. First off, let's start with me.
I call this one 'No Sleep'.

And this one 'Dressing Room Sweatshop'.


Here I am getting 'notes' from the Director onstage after the show.


And wrestling with that bl**** red dress...

I love the literate message left on the mirror from the make-up girls.
But now I must tell you about my inspired 'prop'.

There were a number of large props called for in the script which could have proved quite overwhelming and expensive: staircases. beds for the orphans, different rooms in the mansion; some of these were built, some summarily 'deleted' and others, as they were not 'on' for very long and arguably did not add much to the story but gave flavour to the production, teetered on the brink. Three such items included: a dog cart, a laundry hamper and a hot dog stand. One afternoon in the school basement I spied an old TV trolley which sparked a 'brilliant' idea! The trolley would become the frame for all three props.

The laundry hamper could hang inside the frame. This had to be big enough for Annie to hide inside and be wheeled offstage in. The hotdog stand would need sides which we hooked on: the dog cart could be the reverse sides of the hotdog stand. There were actually four sides to the thing but as you can see here at the dress rehearsal getting them all flipped over and reattached in time could be a problem.

Here's all our servants wearing those problematic uniforms which I seemed to be cutting out for EVER. The worst part was cutting them out at night. The black knit fabric was slippery and hard to see with my aging eyes. The blue kitchen staff dresses I borrowed from another school (yay).

Finally, here's the tech crew.

Two of the little blonde lads on the left were the ones who were 'sharing the headset' in the lighting box :-D....awwwwww....they are such babies....

And now, we return you to normal transmission.

Crafty Tuesday: The Costumes

For Crafty Tuesday this week I bring you both my own craftiness and my overall crafty vision albeit made by someone else! Having said that, for many of these I did everything up to and including the cutting out and merely outsourced the sewing :-)

Firstly, the ubiquitous red dress! I am so disappointed that discretion prevents me posting the full photos as the young lady in question looked beautiful in both of these.
Yes, that is a real dog, and yes, it could have been a disaster; in fact, during dress rehearsal it was a disaster but by the first performance 'Annie' had mastered the art of delivering non stop 'treats' to our Sandy stand-in so that he sat solidly in one place, munching!


Here's a full length shot of the dress. See how I cut it wide at the front to cover her 'assets'?


This is dress rehearsal shot of her first outfit, her 'orphan' clothes. Note the less than co-operative dog.
I've left the face in on this one as it is relatively obscure. This is Bert Healy the 'radio' personality from the 'Oxydent Hour of Smiles'. I didn't make this costume; it was one of many I assembled from our costume store but I think it came together well. She loved it!

These young ladies were 'the lovely Boylan Sisters!' and they were one costume I didn't feel worked completely . This was partly because I had envisioned a pastel yellow for the girl closest to the camera but could only get gold in the fabric; partly because the ruffled sleeves in the pattern stuck up too much so we left them off but in hindsight I feel I should have replaced them with something else...a softer fabric maybe or a puff sleeve?; and partly because I left the purchase of the pink and gold sparkly decorations to someone else. The blue one I bought is ok, not great mind you, but I think the other two are way too gaudy. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

'Ralph and Shirley Mudge', the villains in disguise, were a good example of utilising what we had in the costume store but bringing it together well. 'Shirley' had more of a curl in her hair for the actual performance. I don't have pics of their first, more gaudy, outfits. Perhaps later?

Now a couple of group shots. I know their faces are 'in' here but I wanted you to get a feel for the set and I figure they're fairly small pics...


Firstly 'Hooverville'. For those unfamiliar with 'Annie', the story is set during The Depression when many shanty towns or so called 'Hoovervilles' (named after the President, Herbert Hoover) sprang up around the country as people lost everything in the stock market crash. I am pretty proud of this set as the design is mine. I didn't paint it, that was our sensational Art teacher, but the concept and original drawing were mine. I am a bit sad that I wasn't able to organise any 'lean-tos' on stage, and it was also a shame we couldn't stretch the production budget to include a data projector so we could project scenes onto the back cyc; still with the lighting (which is washed out here) it looked very shadowy and atmospheric.

I have to draw your attention to the hobo stove at the front there. It was designed and constructed by Himself and contained 4 torches suspended on wires with a whole bunch of red and yellow cellophane and aluminium foil. The overall effect, in the low light, was of flickering coals in an old metal stove. You don't get it here but I can assure you that it was VERY cool. Well done Himself!!!!


This was NYC, the showstopping tribute to New York City. Once again the costumes are a mix of outfits assembled from the costume store, items trawled from op shops and a few custom made jobs. The art work by our Art teacher was again a stand out. It made me wish we had commissioned more panels to fly in for other scenes but really, she gave up her holidays to paint these as it was!

Back to more up close shots; this is a scene in Daddy Warbuck's mansion. It is so sad I can't show you their faces as they are all so gorgeous and acting their little socks off here. We borrowed the blue and white costumes on the right from another school which had done 'Annie' before. I had planned for all the servants to wear these but as more 'best laid plans' were rent asunder, it became evident that only the smallest of our girls would fit them. The cook at the front is wearing only the apron from the original costume, the rest I cobbled together from our costume store. I think it worked. Anyway, as a result I had 7 men and 6 women to dress as servants. You can see three of them in the background. I had to cut out a range of sizes of those black dresses, starting at 10s and going up to 18s, as well as a number of black vests when it became evident that they are as scarce as hen's teeth in op shops. I also made the bowties in the same blue as the kitchen staff's dresses and bought matching blue ribbon for the female servants in black to tie around their necks. This is a dress rehearsal shot so I notice the girl behind doesn't have her ribbon on. I was really happy with the way these scenes looked especially since it was murder cutting out black gaberdine fabric at 2am!!!

Finally, for now, a few more orphans. I really want to get a shot of them all together because I think the palette of fabrics worked really well. Once again it's a shame I can't show you their faces as they are really beautiful! The dress nearest to the camera is the one I made. I also ended up top stitching all the necklines on the pinafores to give them a better finish.

Oh alright, I couldn't resist a shot of them altogether with the orphanage 'set' in the background. That was my vision too although again I left the actual painting to far more talented people. I hesitated on including this shot because there are a few anomalies. It was dress rehearsal; the young lady in black leggings was told to get cream or lose them altogether and there is one lass with no pinny (another job finished on that all night stint).

So there you have it; a whistle stop tour of costumes and sets for The Musical 2009. To see some other crafty offerings, click over to Barely Controlled Chaos and see what other crafty bloggers have to show for Crafty Tuesday.

Its A Hard Knock Life For Us!

It is over.

Months and months of planning and rehearsal culminating in a brief week of furious activity and four performances.

Throughout this glorious week I wore a number of hats. I was still responsible for costumes and, in particular, finishing the infamous Annie 'red dress' but I was also stage manager which meant I 'ran' the show from a position in the wings, co-ordinating the lights, spots, sound, orchestra and backstage crews. A perfect job for a control freak :-D



We moved into the theatre last Monday in a process known as 'bumping in'. It is well named. It is rarely a smooth process. There was a truck and several trips back and forwards to bring all the sets, props and costumes from the school. There was a trailer and another trip to bring instruments. There was the whole 'costume rack falling over on the way and all costumes falling onto the floor of the truck and losing their labels' to deal with. There was the problem with the staircases.


These monoliths, our main set, were produced for us by the Tech Department at school. They had been fitted with carpet squares underneath so that they sat flush with the ground and slid along the polished floor of our rehearsal room. Of course, as the best laid plans of mice and men flew frantically awry, we discovered that the stage in the theatre had been painted with a slightly textured paint to prevent actors slipping. Unfortunately, this also applied to staircases. There was some intense consultation and experimentation. It was evident that we would need double the number of crew members to move these things in anything close to an acceptable time frame for set changes. Quick rethink. Trolley trucks were provided and with much groaning and sweating the ends of the stairs were hefted aboard. Still too slow. And too noisy! Eventually the Tech boys were brought in from school and fitted both sets of stairs with multiple castors. They no longer sat flush to the ground but at least we could move them.

There was also the problem with the dressing rooms. Two were provided, one for men and one for women. They were of approximately the same size. In our production there were approximately 40 girls and 6 boys. I made a snap decision; the girls were spread between the two woefully inadequate dressing rooms

and the boys were relegated to the loading dock at the back of the stage.



The strange looking table in the foreground here is the mic table. We used 10 radio mics which were swapped between cast members as they came and went from the stage. This grid formation was essential for keeping things under control.

Tuesday was the Tech rehearsal, a tedious process involving; setting lights, practicing set changes and running sound cues. Microphone levels needed to be checked and the orchestra practised with fold back. Our young cast were remarkably patient and co-operative and our backstage crew phenomonally organised and committed. If a little inexperienced.

I asked the prop girls if they had prepared the props table with labels for each item (rather like the grid for the mikes). "Sure," they reassured me and indicated a table marked with two strips of masking tape. One said 'orphanage' and one said 'mansion'.

Me: OK, that's a good start but it's a little bit vague.

Crew: What do you mean?

Me: Weeeeell, you would be better off dividing the table up into a grid and giving each prop a particular space and a label.

Crew: But we are the only ones taking things off, we'll know where they are and where they go.

Me: Uh-huh but in the excitement of the live run you're gonna find that you are working under huge pressure and things will just get put down where-ever. It all looks simple there now, but if I took one item away, would you know which item it was? You should be able to look at your table and know immediately if anything is missing. If you have a space for everything, the gaps will be obvious.

Crew: Hmmm (unconvinced)

Me: Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on this one. Just trust me.

They grumbled and made faces but they did what they were asked (a blessed change from my normal classes).

I asked them about it again after the run and they looked at me like I was stupid to suggest it could occur any other way!

On Tuesday, 'Annie' once again asked me if her red dress was ready. Once again I answered 'no'.
That night I went home to complete it. OK, actually I went home to cut it out first! The problem was that patterns suitable for adapting to make the 'red dress' were in sizes 2yrs-8yrs. Our Annie was a very well developed 15. I had managed to work with one of our more talented staff members to draft a pattern for the red dress but it was all guesswork. On Tuesday night I crashed onto the sofa for a few hours before waking at 1am and starting to cut and sew. When the BA got up at 6am, I was still there. The machine had decided to play up and was constantly jamming. Trying to sew two veeeeery long gathering lines for the sleeves was proving impossible and anyway, I needed to know whether what I had done so far actually fitted the girl in question.

I went into the theatre on Wednesday having worked through from 1am. The dress was still not finished. Once in the theatre I had to stop sewing and start stage managing. Annie wore her dress that afternoon for dress rehearsal complete with pins and no sleeves. I took it home Wednesday night and tried to finish it but my exhaustion defeated me. I got up at 7am and took the unfinished monstrosity into the theatre to complete. The machine continued to play up and the final stitches were put into the dress in the interval before it was worn on stage. Nothing like cutting it fine.You can see the offending, incomplete article in the mirror in this shot.

And so the show got underway.

This is my favourite story.
My lighting 'boys' were two very sweet seventh graders . They had been shown how the desk worked and which buttons to press and we had explained that I 'called' the cues for them to execute. As we worked through the dress rehearsals and the first two live performances, there were a few hiccups in the timing of the lights. Some were my fault but some just seemed to be a general slowness in response from the lighting room. But come on, they are only year sevens!

There was one cue in particular which we had consistently messed up. At the end of the cabinet scene where FDR and his cronies are all singing 'Tomorrow' we had consistently blacked them out too early. By the third performance I was determined to get the timing right. I held off, I called the 'stand-by', I watched intently....and to my horror, the lighting boys blacked the stage out with NO CUE FROM ME!!!!!!!! The cabinet once again finished singing in the dark and after my string of invectives I determined to find out how this had gone wrong.

I fronted my little lighting friends.

Me: So what happened with that black out?
Boy 1: Well, I gave a hand signal to Him and he thought I meant something else so he just 'went'.
Me: hang on........what do you mean you gave a hand signal to him and he 'went'....??????????????
Boy 2: (guilelessly) Well we decided to share the job so in one half he wears the headset and I press the buttons and in the other half I wear the headset and HE presses the buttons!

My carefully timed lighting cues were being passed from one set of ears across the room to another set before being implemented.
No wonder my cues were slow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Did you never think of sharing the job by ONE of you wearing the headset AND pressing the buttons in the first act and the other doing it in the second??????????
Boys: Er...no.
Me: Well that is what we will be doing for the last show!

And the lighting was perfect.