Achtung!

The big number in "The Producers" is Springtime For Hitler, requiring many military looking outfits. My desire for the show was to have everyone looking sharp wearing one of these caps, but at $75 each, that wasn't going to happen. So the next best thing was to make them.
Here are 12 of the 14 military hats I made, I even found the insignia online that matches the expensive hat.
Our original concept was to make paper insignia, and it didn't look too bad, but it would be LABOR INTENSIVE! This was cut on MonkeyGirl's Cricut machine, slightly modified from an American Eagle to a German one.
I about smashed the paper insignia trying to pin it on to the hat, really another way would have been better!


In "Springtime for Hitler", the big production number, a German tenor comes out and sings the song. Then the showgirls, chorus and finally Hitler enter. Hitler looks authentic, but his persona is quite different from the original furror! (Don't believe I've ever spelled that word before, is that how you spell it?)

The chorus is all dressed up in military garb, the girls in somewhat abbreviated version of a uniform! I'll show you pictures of that once I have a full working concept costume!

More to come!

Look at Costume Maniacs for insignia if you are trying to do something like this. www.costumemaniacs.com

Survivor!

The weekend sure was a busy one, and the past two days of school seemed to fly by, even without having classes to teach.

But I survived!

Meeting Friday afternoon, followed by shopping at Macy's. Got a new wool coat at about a 70% discount, guess they are really serious as collecting some cash and reducing their merchandise load. Then off to dinner with my friends...who didn't show up for 1 hour after they were supposed to meet me. I felt like pasting a great big "L" on my forehead for loser, sitting at the table for five all by myself. Finally they came, after navigating through bumper to bumper traffic in the middle of town, all because the main highway closed for construction a day early! What a mess. Then we were off to the theatre.

We saw "Steppin' Out", a story with the setting of a dance studio, and a class of potential dancing stars, all with varying degrees of talent and potential. There was the clutz, the diva, the insecure, the has-been cheerleader, and one lonely male, all trying to perfect a routine for a performance they were to give. As the play progressed, the stories of each of their lives came into focus, with the joys, but mostly the sorrows of each one becoming apparent. Finally, they did their dance performance, first as an amateur group, then they stepped it up to a professional performance. They ended up just an awesome set of performers, and their finale went on and on, to the delight of the audience. Nationally recognized director/choreographer, and it showed, plus a group of young and very talented dancers, they certainly dazzled us all. Five of us saw it, we are going to perform this show with our own theatre group in spring, I don't think it will have exactly the same talent pool that this show had! Definitely an older talent pool!

Then Saturday afternoon, we had tickets to see the Nutcracker with the M & M's. Boy M started throwing up at noon, so his ticket was lost. Our coats had a $25 seat to sit in. Girl M thought it was good for about 15 minutes, then she squirmed for 30, then fell asleep for the last 20. At least Mom and Grandma could enjoy the ending without having to deal with her wiggling. She is too young, even for this shortened and narrated version of the ballet, but we wanted to give her the chance, in case she would like it. She got an ornament of a ballerina and a princess wand as a souvenir.

Saturday night was a local performance of an Irish singer and his ensemble. I'm not going to name names, because I did not enjoy this one bit. He was the typical "lounge lizard" type of singer, singing sappy songs, and the good songs he butchered. But he did have a hilarious comedian with him, and some good Irish dancers. We were glad when he was finished and the others performed. Lucky for me the tickets were free.

Sunday afternoon, we attended a performance of the local adult brass band, that was very good. It always is! Now I got in the mood, when two beloved singers sang "The Christmas Song" and "White Christmas"... they were great, as was the band. Got free tickets for this also.

Then Sunday night, we got to go to our first preschool Christmas Program with the M & M's. Our first adventure was to go out to eat. That worked out pretty well, no ketchup on the dress, no spills or disasters. But after he ate, Boy M said his stomach hurt. All we could envision was him hurling on the stage on to one of his classmates. But no, he had another performance in mind. He started bugging the kid next to him, and kept it up and kept it up, and finally the two were almost in a WWW slap-down competition! Grandma was mortified, and Mom wanted to crawl into a hole. Finally the teacher came over and stopped them. Girl M gave a wonderful thumb sucking exhibition, but she was well behaved. She looked darling in her black velvet/pink chiffon dress.

So five performances in three days, I saw about as much as my hinie could possibly stand. And my little M boy has yet to hear from Grandma as she gives him a piece of her mind about his first stage debut!

Gaston and LeFou

The concurrent play to "Move Over Mrs. Markham" was "Beauty and the Beast", which was put on by a theatre group that I first started my costuming career with.

Beauty and the Beast also went on stage Friday night, and I got to see it on Saturday evening. Gaston was awesome in his tunic, complete with black tights, high boots and a pompador hair do. LeFou was hilarious with pratfalls, blackened teeth and the silliest grin. The costumes looked wonderful on them. With all of LeFou's falls from grace, the costume seemed to hold its own as durable!

The other costumes for this play were absolutely awesome! I think one lady was responsible for many, if not most of them, and they were just fabulous. They give awards each year for various categories of community theatre, and I hope this show is nominated, because they are serious contenders for the top award in costuming.

I did see some retreads from "The Music Man" last year's production. These were costumes I made, but they were just bits and pieces here and there. One character wore his knickers, I think this was his third show in the same knickers! He was my son in Music Man, so I was particularly attuned to what he wore! All the men in this play wore knickers, so there were probably a few more that I made that were prancing around on stage.

Absolutely excellent, you guys really did great!