Wedding Singer - Pictures

The show is over, but here's some pictures. Yay!



This is the end of the opening number "It's Your Wedding Day." It was my wedding day. I am the bride at the top.



The band, "Simply Wed."



Glen Guglia in his "Delorian"



Linda leaving Robbie a note at the alter.



Robbie and Julia try to convince themselves that it's "Not that Kind of Thing" while shopping with some iconic couples: On the right is Han Solo and Princess Leia, in the middle (half hidden) is Sid and Nancy, and on the left is Baby and Johnny (from Dirty Dancing). There was also an Iconic T-shirt couple with "Frankie Say Relax" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go."



The bridge and tunnel crowd in New York City.



In a "Material Girl" sequence Holly realizes that the one that she wants can often be "Right in Front Your Eyes."



Robbie contemplates being "Single."



Robbie recruits some celebrity impersonators to help him find Glen and Julia in Vegas. From left to right: Ronald Reagan, Robbie, Mr. T, Tina Turner with Billy Idol behind her, Imelda Marcos, and Cyndi Lauper in the front.



The Finale.

Wedding Singer - Shiny Dirndls

One of the few well planned out costumes for Wedding Singer were the waitress uniforms for Julia and Holly (the script actually calls for a third waitress, but we cut the part and gave her line to a wedding guest). I found this picture online while researching 80's costume ideas:

So, I drafted (for the first time since college) what I wanted to do for the waitress uniforms:

In the end I decided to go with fuller skirts because of movement. I made black satin skirts with a wide elastic waistband. Sewing onto the elastic was tricky and I did it wrong - I used a zigzag stitch which didn't work out wonderfully because the zigzag function on my sewing machine isn't working right. After some research I now know how to do it right (double needle) to avoid stretch issues the next time.

The director thought we should have different colors for the different waitress so Julia's is gold and Holly's is pink (I also bought a turquoise for the 3rd waitress - I still have the fabric).

The Wedding Singer

The Wedding Singer opened last night and it's gonna be a hit. I started working on this show almost a year ago. When they announced the 2009/2010 season this was the only show I really wanted to be a part of and I was thrilled when the director requested me to do the costumes.

My first meeting with her was last August, so I've had a lot of time to think about it. Unfortunately they didn't cast the show quite so early so I was somewhat limited as to what I could do. But I did a lot of research and studied the script and worked on some costume plots and ideas.

About a month after my meeting with the director, I had another meeting with both the director and my friend Aly, who was going to be the choreographer. The dancing sounded like it was gonna be awesome and Aly suggested that I audition for the show as well.

So I ended up as costumer and as a principal dancer in the ensemble. Crazy.

This is by far the biggest show I've ever costumed. Not the biggest cast (Spirit of the Iao) and not even the most costumes to build (Sound of Music), but definitely the most costumes overall with some crazy things that needed to be done in/with them.

There were about 45 tuxes, 8 wedding gowns, about 4 quick-changes on-stage, a 12 person stripping sequence, 7 sparkly yarmulkes, 2 stunt doubles, 4 80's iconic couples, 7 bridesmaid's dresses, lots of hammer pants, 7 80's celebrity impersonators, not to mention many other crazy things.

This would have been a lot of work had I just costumed it, but since I was in the show I had to sew around the rehearsal schedule. I probably would have come out of this experience saner if I didn't have a regular job. That would have made things a lot easier.

It is nice to be in a show when you're the costumer. I can't blame anyone but me for what I was wearing (except the bagels, those weren't my idea). It was also easier to understand what needed to be done in the costumes when I could see how all the scenes and dancing actually worked. So there were advantages on both sides to being in the show and costuming it, but I hope I never do this to myself again.

If it were a smaller show with much fewer costumes maybe, but musicals probably not. I think after this I might have to take a season off from costuming...but knowing me I'll be right back at it sooner rather than later.

The Wedding Singer, Part I

The big show this summer is The Wedding Singer!! I am both costuming it and dancing in it, so I'm gonna be massively busy this summer. Here are a couple things I've done so far - we just had our first rehearsal so it's early yet. I'll try to post more if I remember to take pictures:



Fuchsia Scrunchie!



Taffeta bridesmaid dress!



Character collage! Obviously not a costume. This was for character development - I went abstract because I'm a dancer in the ensemble.

More 80's fabulocity to come!