Two years ago, I went a little
insane with making ten togas for the community theater's summer production of
The Music Man (which I was in with 3 of my girls). We weren't able to do summer theater last year because it was the same week as our family reunion (it was
Annie, which we were very sad to miss) but we are back at it this year!
Peter Pan!
I am still insane, because this year, I declined taking an on-stage role and instead, I was backstage as the costume manager. I figured I needed to be backstage to help take care of my own kids - JK is technically too young to be in the production (the rule is 6/entering 1st grade - she's 5 and entering Kindergarten), but she was going to be dragged along to all the rehearsals anyway. As for me, well, I can sew or figure out costume planning, as already demonstrated with the togas, so that's where I ended up even before the end of the auditions.
JK arrived at the audition and marched straight up to the executive producer, Jane ...
JK, very firmly: I want to be the pink mermaid!
Jane: Oh? Is pink your favorite color?
JK: No. My favorite color is purple.
Jane: Don't you want to be the purple mermaid?
JK derisively: There aren't any purple mermaids. I want to be the pink mermaid.
Her role was pretty much cast in stone at that point. And since I'd already agreed to take care of costumes, I needed to figure out mermaid tails ... seven of them.
This is a small community theater that's all volunteers, so there's no big costume shop. Everyone is pretty much on their own, unless it's a specialty piece. My job was basically to decide (with Jane, and some consulting with the director) what the costume guidelines would be for the various groups - pirates, lost boys, islanders - and everyone was on their own to get a costume. The theater organization was able to rent an outfit for Captain Hook and a few of other pieces. We also raided the high school costume room (where we perform) for some more items. Lucky for us, the girl playing Peter Pan is a major cosplay fan, and had multiple Peter Pan costumes of her own - the director chose the one he liked best. And I'm traffic control for all of it.
Back to the mermaids ... specialty piece, so I made all the mermaid tails. Most was fabric pulled from my own boxes, but I did go buy PINK.
I looked up a couple of tutorials, but basically they were all made totally freehand and based on each girl's measurements. The body part goes all the way to their feet, with the fin separate. The fins have stiff interfacing between two pieces of fabric. I couldn't figure out how to enclose the seams and still be able to turn them on the curves, so I left them raw edge and finished them on the machine with a wide blanket stitch. I also sprayed everything really thoroughly with starch to cut down on fraying and unraveling, and used glitter glue on the edges. They're holding up pretty well.
Some of the girls did their own decorating with tulle, pearl beads, shells, and flowers. I worked on the ones for my own kids and a couple of the younger girls. Lots of glitter paint. Another mom covered them all in a glitter spray. They seriously look really awesome.
The mermaid scene is that they help Peter play a trick on Hook, when he "disguises" himself as a woman and covers his head with a lace shawl/veil. There's a duet between Peter and Hook that's really funny, "Oh My Mysterious Lady." My two littles are bottom right, and you can see that JK is indeed The Pink Mermaid.
Another costume I'm proud of is Tiger Lily - this one was all me. I decided that she'd wear a Polynesian sarong, and I made her flower crown.
(When TA and JK were not being mermaids, they were also islanders so they could run around and not have to sit the entire time.)
So this is what we've done nonstop in the three weeks since getting back from vacation. And probably what we'll end up doing most summers for as long as we live here. It's long and tiring, but it's FUN. Theater is AWESOME.
P.S. Because I've been asked - yes, all 5 of my girls were in the play. SM was one of the Lost Boys. RG and JE were islanders. TA and JK were islanders and got the extra of the mermaids.
