When my second oldest daughter was in High School, I helped out by accompanying the school musical. We did "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." From the piano, I got to see how the young director put the show together. He was the assistant director for this show when he was in college. He had some great ideas for sets and blocking and even getting good performances out of the high school kids, but costuming was not his forte. He just turned over that task to an inexperienced team of students.
The Costuming Team had very little budget, so they just asked the cast members to come up with their own costumes. Since the show was set in the early 1960's, they figured our 1998 cast could easily find wardrobe items that would work. They just gave direction by saying the men should wear "business attire" and the girls should wear dresses. From my vantage point in the pit, I could tell that the kids really had no idea what people wore on Wall Street in the early 1960's.
Once, I couldn't help butting in, though. (Tried not to interfere, but I just couldn't help it!) One scene was particularly hard on my eyes. The girls wore many solid color dresses in jarring bright colors and stood very close together. There were some major color clashes going on --- hot pinks with fiery oranges standing next to each other. So I quietly asked one girl that I knew had a lovely turquoise dress if she would exchange that for her hot pink dress in this scene. She did and it helped a lot!
The Costuming Team had very little budget, so they just asked the cast members to come up with their own costumes. Since the show was set in the early 1960's, they figured our 1998 cast could easily find wardrobe items that would work. They just gave direction by saying the men should wear "business attire" and the girls should wear dresses. From my vantage point in the pit, I could tell that the kids really had no idea what people wore on Wall Street in the early 1960's.
Once, I couldn't help butting in, though. (Tried not to interfere, but I just couldn't help it!) One scene was particularly hard on my eyes. The girls wore many solid color dresses in jarring bright colors and stood very close together. There were some major color clashes going on --- hot pinks with fiery oranges standing next to each other. So I quietly asked one girl that I knew had a lovely turquoise dress if she would exchange that for her hot pink dress in this scene. She did and it helped a lot!
Muted colors in earth tones for "The Wells Fargo Wagon" number. Most professional costumers try to plan the scenes with colors schemes in mind. One musical comes to mind where this is very evident. Every professional production of "The Music Man" that I have watched goes to great effort and expense to coordinate the costumes in scenes by colors. They do this all while being true to the characters and time periods.
Whites, soft greys and browns with many layers of pinks for the "Shipoopi" dance.
Creating coordinating costumes in scenes ON A STRICT BUDGET is more of a challenge, that's for sure!!! It's even harder when your only option is to trust that the cast members will come up with their own costumes. Giving good directions is key. It may also be useful to give each scene a color scheme plan --- such as "muted earth tones," or "red white and blue," or "pastels." Then, of course, post examples of styles.
Sometimes the scenes just call out for particular colors. That makes finding or creating costumes for the scenes that much easier. Here are ideas from "A Successor to the Throne" that has dances for each season. What better way to coordinate than use the traditional colors of each season? Costumes really help young actors get into character.
Autumn dancers
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