Costuming a High School Play

Madison Consolidated High School Theater Department has an extensive collection of theater costumes from previous theatrical productions and events. One past triumph was a cache of rhinestone-studded camouflage jumpsuits that were pressed into service for productions of both Pippin” and Xanadu.” Often she just fills four to six large bags with whatever items strike her as stage worthy, and decides which production they fit best upon returning home.  This is just one part of costuming a high school play.

The costume designer does this through designing, sewing, researching and purchasing actual clothing and costumes worn by those on stage and by selecting or designing the accessories and props which help to define each character.

From the moment the designer first reads the script until the show begins, the costume designer is always on the go. Once a production begins, the costume designer’s job is basically complete, though he/she may assist in the event problems occur with costumes during production.

Whimsy” is about The Boy,” played by Max Tullgren, who imagines that the school janitor is Snow White, that the school bully is the aforementioned Wolf.” He sees whimsy” all around, and without revealing too much, he has that whimsy taken away.

All this came out of the imaginations of Caple and Burns, who took songs Burns and Scott Hermenau wrote for various theater camps and created a story that should resonate with middle school students, and anyone has been one.

Then the stage was alight with the imagination of one middle school boy as he went though the school day, turning everyone into his characters – Alice and the Red Queen, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, Jack looking for his beanstock; even Huck and Tom were there.

Though many of these costumes can be pieced together from existing costume closets, for those productions with a little more money and no ability to produce clothing, it might not be a bad idea to rent costumes.

Jumpsuits have often been used as stage costumes in stage productions and by various singers and bands: Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, The Who, Freddie Mercury, Feeder, Alphaville, Goldfrapp, Britney Spears, Pink, Devo, Polysics, The Spice Girls, Korn and Slipknot, for example, have all performed in flamboyantly-designed jumpsuit-like garments.