Finally home after a long and hot day of work. I'm a bit exhausted from today's travels, but I'll do my best to update you all about my crazy - but very productive day!
Yesterday I met the other three interns who will be working alongside the other crew members - two are college seniors (one of which goes to the same college as me and works in the theater department!) and a sophomore like me. We figured out that the costumes will be rented from UNCSA…well, about half of them. We have multiple actors (say, 20) who are larger than costumes that UNCSA can provide (including several of the leads), so we have to create alternative methods of acquiring costumes and it looks like it will be in the form of building lots and lots of fitted prairie blouses and ruffled skirts, as well as digging through jam-packed racks in an overcrowded basement for cowboy shirts, pants, and a pair of size 15 EEE cowboy boots. So we definitely have our work cut out for us. It looks like we'll be racing until the final bell.
My biggest news is that today my supervisor and I went fabric shopping for suitable fabrics for the various costumes. As of present, our Ado Annie and Aunt Eller, will not fit the rental costumes, so we are building those from scratch, as well as a couple female ensemble members. The tricky thing is trying to find fabric that will fit in with the costumes that are being shipped to us - ones that are bright primaries and plaids. Surprisingly, our trip was very successful.
Our original plan for today was to ship out around 10 and head to JoAnn's and Savers (and maybe Sew Low Fabrics in Cambridge with time). Like always, it didn't go quite like that. I arrived after 10 and went down to the shop to find it locked (I keep forgetting there is a second entrance I should check). I figured I'd head back up to the box office where the producer mentioned I should look through the scripts because he saw a wardrobe breakdown for the original production at the back of one of them. I found this and had finished photocopying it when my supervisor came and found me. We went back to the shop and then figured out which men's costumes we would need to look for down in the basement. I wrote down the list of measurements, grabbed the keys and we headed into the basement. While putting away a couple of the dresses we had pulled last week as possibilities, we ran head first into a white with red polka dot tiered skirt - perfect for the flirty Ado Annie! - And right next to it were a couple red dresses that would be good potentials with a little fixing up. These went on the rack. Next were the men’s dress shirts - large sized ones for our larger men. We found a number of them that could work, but we won't know until we open up the rental crates in the next week or so. All of these went on the rack and were hung on the rack upstairs.
After this bout in the basement, it was finally time to hit the road for JoAnn’s and Savers. We packed up and headed out into the humidity of the day. After a half-hour drive of turning around and driving around my town (I’m a good navigator!), we arrived at JoAnn’s. The mission for this trip was to find suitable (and durable) fabrics that would match the color palette of the rental and fit the descriptions of the lead’s very specific costumes. After three hours of wandering through the store, weighing every option (which is really important – I generally spend at least an hour figuring out fabric for a costume), and deciphering correct patterns for blouses and such, we sauntered up to the cutting table with a whole cart filled with bolts of the softest cotton in blues, greens, yellows, reds and bold white polka dots on brown and red. Quite a mix, but they all seem to look quite nice together. We waited patiently at the cutting table as our cutter skillfully counted out the yardage on the bolts and re-rolled them. Lucky for us she was also a costumer, and understood how it goes to buy 6 full bolts of fabric and 6 smaller cuts. Bolts, fabric, thread, patterns and pins in hand, we walked out very relieved to have finished a large bulk of our initial shopping.
But we are far from done. All of our purchases need to be approved by the producer before washing and we need to purchase any trims or notions required to finish the dresses. There are also the not seen things such as tights, undershirts, towels, and socks, which need to be purchased before things get hectic. So I’m hoping we can organize that tomorrow.
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