My Favorite Costume Ever!

I was an actor in high school and when I went off to college I had absolutely no ambitions to continue my theater career. I was an academic and I wanted to study something in science. After the first quarter I figured out that I wanted to major in physics, but at that point it was too late in the year to start the physics track.

So I was looking for classes to take and I found a freshman seminar called Clothing and Culture. I loved the class and I really like the professor so I started taking more and more costume classes until I had enough to minor in Theatre Arts.

About a year after moving back to Maui I started doing costumes for the community theater and I have been averaging about 2 shows a season since including: Barefoot in the Park, The Full Monty, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Blithe Spirit, and others.

My favorite show to costume thus far was The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful. It’s a spoof of gothic dramas, but there are only two actors in the show. They each play four different roles, so all of the costumes had to be quick-change as they would jump from character to character throughout the show. I think there were something like 37 costumes changes throughout the show.

So, needless to say, it was a costuming challenge and I had a blast with it. I had a French maid underdressed beneath a man’s safari suit, and at one point an actor changed from a ball gown to a man’s suit in under 5 seconds.

The ball gown is – to this day – my favorite costume I’ve ever put on stage. And it’s been used in 3 different shows thus far.

I was the second costume designer that they hired for this show (this first dropped out) so I didn’t have a ton of time. They weren’t sure if they were going to be able to get another costumer, so they had pulled some clothes from storage which I then altered to make them quick-change.

For the gown, which was kind of old and ratty (my one regret for this costume is that I didn’t use something in better shape that would have held up better over time) I had to add some material to the neckline to cover up the suit that the actor would be wearing underneath for his other main character. The actor also wanted the gown to have a train. So, I removed the zipper and cut the dress down the back. I made an overskirt from an 1880’s skirt pattern I found on the internet and sewed it on one side, and had it Velcro in place on the other.

So the overskirt covered the opening in the back making it really easy to get in and out of really quickly (with a little help).


Here is a picture from Irma Vep.

This is me in the dress. I wore it for our anniversary review show.