La Cage Aux Folles

So, not quite 2 in one day, but still 2 in 2 days is pretty good for me...

This show is the reason that I haven't blogged in forever, and why I've been slightly cranky for a couple months - if you got any firsthand experience of my mood, I'd like to apologize now.

La Cage Aux Folles is probably one of the largest costume undertakings I have ever done. Wizard of Oz may have been more, but it was a different kind of challenge and I had a lot more help there. I was supposed to have more help for La Cage, but it didn't work out - I blame Fiddler on the Roof for taking all my help away.

So, if you don't know the story of La Cage Aux Folles watch the Birdcage - it's based on the same story. It's a great story and a funny show. But it has a chorus of drag queens - that's where the costume insanity came in. The chorus of drag queens - Les Cagelles - is actually made up of a mix of men and women, with the idea that you're not supposed to be able to tell who is which. Unfortunately there aren't enough masculine women or feminine men on Maui (who can sing and dance) so it was a challenge trying to make them all look the same. We had some tiny little women and some rather large men - AND THEY ALL HAD TO LOOK ALIKE!!

That was my challenge.

Challenge Accepted!

Here's some pictures:

A Little More Mascara

I made the teal dress and jacket that Zaza is wearing - the sequin dresses came from eBay (I did have to make several of larger ones - not seen in this picture).

We Are What We Are

 I made 11 sets of sailor tops and red sparkle shorts - the sparkle shorts look better in person.

La Cage Aux Folles - Can Can

I bought corsets for everyone - they had them in all the sizes I needed, surprisingly. I made the can can skirts. They are awesome and one of my absolute favorite pieces. Here's what the top looks like:

The song 'La Cage Aux Folles' toward the end of the first act has 3 different dance parts for Les Cagelles. They start off as birds, then the can can section from above, then a tailcoat portion at the end. Below is the bird section - they wear the same corset and dance briefs through the whole song. For the bird section they have tutus (there were supposed to be bustles but the boas I bought have not arrived yet - the show opened over a week ago) and showgirl style headdresses.

La Cage Aux Folles - Birds

I made the headdresses following this Sempstress tutorial. It worked out really well - some of the cast helped me make them assembly-line style.  I also ended up trying out some other styles for the finale based on a random pinterest search of showgirl headdresses. Here's the other two (I would have made more but I didn't have enough time):

Here's some random costumes from the finale (and some sequin dresses) at the opening night gala (gay-la) along with the director - second from the left:

Random Costumes - Opening Gala

I made some other really cute headpieces for some of the costumes:

 

The one on the left is one of my favorites but it wasn't used.

It was supposed to go with this costume:

Phaedra - the Enigma

I made that the weekend before the show opened. I used an existing robe and added a whole lot to it. I love the collar. Here's the collar by itself:

It's so fluffy I could die!

Here's another one of the Zaza dress and jacket:

The dress is awesome - I picked the pattern because I needed something I could make zip up the front because she puts it on onstage. But she ended up just wearing it under a robe already zipped - so it zips up the front for no reason. But, on the bright side, I now know how to sew in an invisible zipper.

The material for the jacket was expensive. It's a mesh with sequins and embroidery all over it. I had grand plans to do this jacket correctly and remove the sequins from the seam lines and allowances - but sadly that was taking too frickin' long so I gave up and just sewed through the damn sequins. Oh well - theater allows for some amount of shortcuts. 

Of course there's more to this show than the drag queens. Here's some of the other costumes:

Anne on My Arm

Georges, Jean-Michel, and the Dindons

The Best of Times is Now

One last Cagelle pic. Here's a couple of my friends (they are actually a couple). I made/bought the parts for the costume on the right - she decorated it.

Christmas Tree Dress

Like usual I am many months behind on blogging...but I have a day off so I may even do 2 in one day!

This one is a costume I made for a Christmas show from last year. They wanted their emcee dressed as a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree that lights up.

Challenge accepted!!

So I decided to do a full skirt/corset look. I bought the corset - there are some amazing things you can find on eBay. I designed and made the skirt based on a hoop skirt Instructable. And I made the pattern(s) myself.
Instead of having a skirt over a hoop skirt, I put the hoops in the skirt itself - what can I can say, I'm a little lazy.

Also, instead of using one piece of fabric like in the instructable I made a graduated skirt - each layer gets a little bigger. Each layer had a circular peplum to be the actual fluff for the tree.

Here's the completed skirt:

Then I added garland and lights - the lights are kinda hidden in the garland in this picture. I made an inside bustle/fanny pack to hold the battery packs for the skirt.

I used wired pixie lights. They were light, they were LED so the didn't get hot, and the batteries last forever. But because they were battery powered they only came in short lengths: 7 to 10 feet. There were 3 sets of lights on the skirt, 2 on the bodice, and 1 on the hat.

 

I made some ornaments out of craft foam - I needed to keep things light since the hoops and batteries made the skirt pretty heavy.

 

 

The skirt itself looked so great on my dress form I used it for a Christmas tree for awhile:

 

The hat was kind of fun to make too - and it kind of works on it's own. I used a pattern for a party hat I found online. I used buckram for the hat and ended up filling it with Styrofoam and floral foam. The Styrofoam was in the top and supported the star. The floral foam was on the bottom and I carved out a notch for the battery pack to fit into. I stuck pins through the outside to kind of keep the foam in place.

The star in the picture below is not the one I ended up using. This was an actual Christmas tree star and it ended up making the hat too top heavy. So I used it as a pattern and made one out of craft foam.

I don't have any pictures of just the corset. It was a great corset, but since it came from China it took a month and a half to get here. Good thing I ordered it right after Halloween. So I only had a day or too to put on the garland and lights.  I had to use 2 sets of lights because corsets are essentially two separate pieces - two halves - so I needed a set of lights for each side. She kept those battery packs in her boobs.

I also put together a Christmas Can-Can dance for this same Christmas show and incorporated the Christmas Tree. I made the Can-Can skirts as well. Here's a picture of Santa, the Christmas Tree, and me and my fellow can-canners.