SPAMALOT! An overview!

Show week is done, the reviews are out and 'Spamalot' with Bournemouth Musical Theatre Productions has been an overwhelming success! With the show now finished I can finally reveal the costumes and props that I designed and made, the parts I had a creative hand in and the costumes - and props - I designed, made, altered, fitted and mended! It has been a wonderful experience to work with the fantastic Lisa Stead, and on such a vast production, and I hope to work with her again. On final count (I believe) we had 116 costumes for this show, making it the most costumed show that I have ever worked on!

As Wardrobe Mistress
As wardrobe mistress, I had two dressers that I brought on board and I split and scheduled the costume changes between the three of us so that the people who needed a dresser had one when needed. We had three dressing rooms - one ladies, one mens, and one for the Lady of the Lake and the two Diva's - and the downstairs studio that was used for the faster changes and for set and props. I made two changing area's in the studio - mens and ladies - for the combined uses of privacy for the actors, keeping the costumes contained so that the dressers could find the people they needed, the actors wouldn't get their costumes muddled and the costumes would be separated from the set and props.
I put a rail in each of the two sections and set a quick change rail for wing changed in the alcove of the backstage corridor that ran between the wings. This rail was set only by me so that myself and the dressers would just be able to grab and run when we were on the fast changes, the fastest of which I was on and came to less then 13 seconds. We had multiple changes in both wings, which with people singing in the wings, multiple large moving set pieces moving in and out of the wings into the back room, and limited space made it an interesting challenge which my dressers coped with beautifully.
The most interesting aspect and the newest for me was two quick changes into and out of stilts for one of our actors. Stilts were a new challenge for me, and had to be checked before the performances by the stage manager to make sure that they were safe and secure. We had to practice multiple times in rehearsals and it took two of us to get the performer out of the stilts in time for his entrance for a dance number.

Costume

The Lady of the Lake; 

I had the honour of being able to design and make one of the costumes for the female lead, The Lady of the Lake (Becky Willis) For the scenes it was used for, The Broadway and Westend versions both used catsuits - after speaking to Lisa, we didn't want to specifically have a cat suit but have the same kind of feel for the costume. With that in mind I designed this! It was my first time working with four way stretch lycra, which I had dreaded but I really enjoyed working with it and it was much easier to work with then I had thought it would be!

Left - Final designs for the costume, made so that the arm and leg ruffles could be removed so that it would be a slightly different costume between the first and second scene that it was used in.

Middle - Between fittings.
Right - Final Fitting

Arm ruffle layers to match skirt

The Lady Of The Lake - about to enter the stage!

Lancelot;

During the show, there is a particular scene where Lancelot must be semi stripped, and required some extravagant underwear! They had to be pg friendly while at the same time being outrageous. After submitting a selection of designs, this is the one that was finally selected. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get any photos of him in his full costume but I do have making photos, and photos of the full costume in the theatre. During the scene, as Lancelot is stripped from a full knight's costume (which was sourced but needed altering to add two shields to the chest) to reveal his pantaloons - we also had a shield on his chest that needed to be ripped away to reveal another underneath. I got to design both shields with Lisa's input and create them!

 Front                                                Back

 Left - Before the shield is ripped away

Right - After the shield is ripped away

After the shield and skirt are both ripped away

Tim The Enchanter

For Tim the Enchanter, I had a really fun job in creating a horned cowl/hood! The horns needed to be light weight, big and durable enough to last through the run. I decided to use plastazote, cutting circled getting increasingly smaller and used my hot glue gun to glue them into spiralling horns. Using a photo of some goat horns as a basic guideline I painted the horns with a mix of white, cream, yellow, brown, grey and green paint concentrating the darker colours at the tips of the horns and mixing all the paint with PVA to make sure that it stayed on. 

For the cowl I sourced some stretch brown fabric and fitted it to his head, pinning a gather off-centre under the performers chin and leaving a swathe of fabric to drape over the shoulder and add to the stability of the cowl. I marked on the fabric where the horns should be and at the performers request cut two small holes where his ears would be so that while his ears wouldn't show, his hearing wouldn't be impaired.

Our Tim trying on his horns for the first time

Making

The Minstrels;

We had four minstrels in need of jackets - two Lisa sourced from a costume sale that went well together, and she left it for me to create the other two! They were heavy jackets, one red, fully velvet on the torso and back with dense white fabric for the sleeves and collar, the other the same but a different colour body and a heavy patterned fabric for the front with a velvet back in matching blue.

I had some brocade left over from Romeo and Juliet three years ago, and so the yellow and green brocade were selected for the two remaining tunics and as long as they fitted with the other two bought ones I was given free reign. I chose to use velvet on the backs of each tunic, going for a green velvet much darker then the brocade for the green jacket as it helped it fit with the deep red and blue of the first two. For the yellow I got a mid-tone yellow and managed to find one that was tinted with brown and grey rather then a golden yellow as it washed out the yellow brocade. I used cotton drill for the collar and sleeves.

This was an amazing opportunity for me as it meant creating my own pattern, especially with one jacket for a male performer and the other for a woman. The green was a quick-change costume as between coming off from the end of one scene and being the first to enter for the next he had an incredibly fast change that myself and one of my fantastic dressers assisted him with. I put snap fasteners down the front to make sure that while the jacket was secure when worn, the change could be as fast as possible.

 

Sleeve

 The finished green jacket!

Left - Yellow Minstrel Jacket before the final fitting
Right - Green Minstrel about to go onstage!

Unlike the green, the yellow velvet was thin to make it more comfortable to be worn under stage lights for long periods of time. Due to the change in positions that the performer had to undertake onstage, the fastenings had to be moved a few times. For the bottom triangles I alternated the front fabric and the velvet to get more texture in.

Left - Finishing attaching the bottom triangles

Right - Finishing attaching the fastenings

Props

There main props that I got to make were the fish for the fantastic 'Finland - Fisch Schlapping' song. They had to be soft and flexible enough to be harmless even when slapping, while still being big enough and stable enough to hold their shape under duress - such as when being used to slap. For the dance, the four large fish had to be attached under the aprons in such a way that when they were needed, the dancers could quickly and easily pull the fish out from under the apron to use. I put a square of Velcro on the fish (just above the tail so that they would not be too long and hang below the edge of the apron) and a corresponding square of Velcro on the inside of the apron waistband.

For the same number - 'Fisch Schlapping' - we needed four aprons for our female dancers that had to be large enough to hide a large fish while being small enough to not eclipse their skirts.

I was given one apron that Lisa had sourced to use as a guide, and two pillowcases to turn into the three remaining aprons required! The colours of the skirts were green, coral, purple and red, I wanted to incorporate the skirt colours into the aprons as well as the colours of their male dance partners.

 This is the apron I was given to go from as a guideline

Left - the three new aprons on top of the original

Right - the two new grey aprons together next to the original black

The Laker Capes
As an addition, to go with the 'Laker Girls' leotards I was asked to make them each a cape of sheer but sparkling fabric. On consultation with Lisa, I selected Peacock Blue Sugar Puff Voile due to its sheen and sparkle as well as its beautiful and vibrant colour. I measured the maximum arm span of each laker girl, with five of the six needing capes of 175 by 115, with one needing 165 by 115. From there it was measuring out and forming the shape. Once we got to the theatre I hemmed them and added finger loops.

I also made capes for the two 'Diva's', the Lady of the Lakes...I guess they could be described best as her ladies? They made an appearance in quite a few of the songs the Lady didn't while still being, effectively, hers. While I did not manage to get a photograph of the Laker Girls wearing their capes, I managed to get this one of the Diva capes, with the lady of the Lake's cape, hung up awaiting the arrival of the cast.

Costume Alterations - Lady of the Lake Dress 1

Near the start of the rehearsal period, Lisa ordered a dress for our lady of the lake, and handed it over to me for creative alterations. I was given a 'shell bra' and told that I could do whatever I wanted to the dress but there needed to be movement in it.

 Adding the 'scales' for the skirt

The 'Shell Bra' addition - I decided to paint them a combination of purple, pink, blue and grey to make them really stand out and to emphasise the contours in the shells

As a last minute addition, a cape was asked for to go with the dress to match in with the 'laker girl' capes - while the laker girl capes are one panel, and the Diva capes are two panels each, the Lady of the Lake cape had three panels which made for a very impressively long and voluminous cape

Our Lady of the Lake, about to go onstage

Alterations;

From Ni Knight Helmets to grails, from trick costumes to show girls to rabbits, there were a lot of alterations for me to do! I wont put all the alterations on here, as there were a lot of them from taking in to letting out, adding in elastic and fastenings, and even at one point stapling on leaves, so on here I will put the highlights.

This was one of the Lady of the Lake's costume, a trick costume that had to be stripped away onstage to reveal a dress beneath - I undid the seam from the shoulder (under the surface embellishment so that it would not need to be cut) and down to the front seam on one side, then used snap fasteners to put it back together

 As I had made Tim's horns I was asked to add on to the horns on the main Ni Knight helmet

The blue minstrel jacket needed taking in at the back

Our showgirls together

A series of evenings of rhinestoning the front section and the backs of the showgirls - at first I rhinestoned the front densely but unfortunately as they were put on the stretch of the mesh loosened some of the rhinestones so from then I rhinestoned in a looser and more random pattern so if any of them came loose it wouldn't be as obvious

 Left - the rabbit puppets, I was given three identical ones and asked to make one evil and one to look like it had been through an explosion.

Group Costumes

The Black Knight;

This was one of the most complex costumes to get working, with at the same time one of the simplest solutions! This was a team effort between me, Lisa, and a group of helpers who spent a couple of days helping us. I made the initial costume with Lisa's input then our team of helpers helped to finish it! It wasn't the most neatly made costume but as one that needed to be pulled apart on stage giving the appearance of the performers arms being cut off it worked perfectly.

This costume I made of black polycotton. The sleeves needed to look like they still had a limb in them once they were removed from the costume, so I lined them in sections with plastazote to help them keep their shape. I poppered the sleeves to the armholes and then we added a slit to the torso beneath the sleeves so that the actor could pull his arm into the torso once the sleeve was removed. Our lovely helpers helped make and attach a tabard in shiny black to hang over the torso. The arm removal during a fight scene was meant to look very 'amateur' to add to the comedy, so for fake blood I used ribbon and red webbing cut into strips sewn into the inside of the arm hole so that once the sleeve was removed the strips would burst out and drape over the hole, helping to mask the arm tucked into the torso. 

Working with BMT again has been an absolute pleasure and I truly believe that we produced a truly outstanding show. I would not hesitate to work with them again.

Spamalot - 3 weeks to go!

Just under three weeks until we open - it has been just over a month since I have posted and what a month it has been! The costumes are storming ahead, as with any production costumes are added, they need to be found or made, fitted, altered, embellished or broken down - and all of the above have been happening in spades over the last month! The costume props I have been given to make are fascinating and definitely not things I have come across in previous shows, with interesting headpieces and sparkles by the bucket load.

The costume changes and quick changes are mapped, and in my capacity as Wardrobe Mistress I have assembled a small team of dressers who will be coming in to see the show for the first time next week and to receive their individual dresser plots. Individual dresser plots are something that, with the size of the shows that I have done up to this point, have not been overly necessary, however with the size and complexity of this show they are definitely a requirement!

Yesterday, myself, Lisa the Head of Costume and two wonderful volunteers met up for a sewing afternoon to get as much done as we could and I am very happy to say that quite a few alterations, embellishments, accessories and additions were made, done and altered, and while there will be a few more of these days ahead before the show, we are very much on target.

In terms of costume making, I have several on the go at the moment including one of Lancelot's costume pieces and one of the Lady of the Lake costumes, both of which I am incredibly honoured and excited to have both designed and be making!

Photos of costumes and making can unfortunately only be put up after the show I'm afraid to avoid spoiling any aspect of the show for the audience but I cannot wait to be able to put the photos up the costumes are already looking spectacular!

If you are in the Christchurch, Bournemouth or larger Dorset area, the show is on at the Regent Centre Theatre, Christchurch, from the 8th to the 11th of June, and while Friday and Saturday nights tickets are incredibly busy there are still some left for the Saturday Matinee, Thursday and the opening night on Wednesday so book fast!

Spamalot speeding ahead!

With nine weeks left before the production, rehearsals are going incredibly well and we are nearly at the point to begin full show runs! Almost all necessary costume changes and additions have been charted from the current rehearsals - with a few changes to characters and actors and a number of new costumes for musical numbers - as well as props changes, with lists upon lists nearly finalised though always with room for last minute changes. The costumes themselves are well underway, with fittings to come! I am also delighted to nearly have the complete second act plotted in terms of costume changes (when, where, and from which to which) so next it will be assessing and assigning any additional dressers! Certain of the changes I will be handling myself, though I will be bringing in dressers to prepare them during the runs and running a small team.

Show week is, for the most part, plotted and scheduled with plans well underway - and in the mean time its lists! Updating lists, writing new lists, sectioning lists and, my favourite part, crossing off lists as tasks, props and costumes are completed. It is myself and Lisa, the costume primary, as the costume department, with myself as Wardrobe mistress for show week, but until then I am still on both costumes and props! I have been given pretty much free reign with the props I have been given, and in terms of costume a few of my own designs (not to be revealed until after the show) for costumes that we couldn't source have been selected by Lisa, the costume primary, to be made by myself and included in the show!

I have also been spending some of my time on puppetry, but again, that is a surprise for a later date so stay tuned for more updates!

Spamalot - Diva's, Costumes and Props Ahoy!

A quick post today, and not as nautical as the title would suggest, it is none-the-less all go. After going through the costumes sourced so far and the pieces left to make/find with Lisa, I am delighted to be making several costume pieces, including one of the costumes for our wonderful Diva! So as not to ruin the surprise I will not be able to post photographs or a description of the costumes until after the performance dates, but suffice to say that it is by far the most complex - and possibly the shiniest - costume I have made. With final approval on designs and after collecting measurements and fabric, the costume block drafting and costume making starts in earnest today.

The results of just one of my fabric sample sourcing trips over the last two weeks!

The fun of experimenting with trick costumes is still to come today and tomorrow as we have a very interesting trick onstage that is going to take some working out - you will know it when you see it!

Spamalot - Its all about the timing, and its definitely all go!

Well we are now almost two months into rehearsals with just over three months to go, and it is indeed all go! You know when it is going to be a large show when even at this stage, there is very little time to write posts about the show so apologies for any long gaps!

Over the course of rehearsals, I have been taking costume notes and timing costume changes, beginning to take measurements, and in the course of the last few rehearsals costumes have been appearing in rehearsals with costumier Lisa Stead to be tried on by various cast members which I have been documenting, with fittings to come closer to the show. I have been given responsibility for designing and making some of the costumes which I am already well under way with and it is incredibly exciting! With a fabric sample sourcing trip last week, there are a variety of designs to choose from waiting for final selection. Due to not wanting to give away any spoilers, details of those particular costumes will not be being released until after the performances, but it is safe to say that there will be a few surprises during the show! In addition to this I have been given responsibility over designing and making various props, which is proving to be an interesting and exciting challenge - I have now started an itemised to-do list separated into costume and props.

In the case of the quick changes, timing is everything in both working out who needs a dresser, and how many dressers may be needed! With the amount and complexity of changes, I created another master document keeping track of who is onstage and what they are wearing, who is offstage and when and where they need to change, if they have a dresser who it is, and with a section for props locations so that if quick changes are needed for someone with props to take on, they don't change on the opposite side of the stage to their props! Another aspect of this is timing the quick-changes so that both performer and dresser know exactly how much time they have, and to make sure that we can practice and have the changes smooth and on time by the time we get to show week.
The master document will no doubt be refined a few times, with changes happening as people are added to or moved between scenes, but at the moment, it is working out the best way of keeping track of the wardrobe. The rehearsals are going beautifully, and already it is a wonderful show to watch!

Welcome to Spamalot!

I am once again working with the wonderful Bournemouth Musical Theatre Productions on their summer production which, this year, is Spamalot! A large scale musical with anticipated costumes numbering well over 100, this is going to be a very fun show to work on! In addition to wardrobe mistress, this year I am also assisting Lisa Stead, the costumer, in sourcing and making costumes. From attending the read through this is an incredibly strong cast, and the rehearsals have already begun.

For anyone not familiar with Spamalot it is a Monty Python musical based on the plot of their film The Holy Grail, and has an astonishing number of costumes and costume changes. With a large cast, this includes for almost all performers multiple costume changes, quick changes and VERY quick changes! With the complex amount and variety of changes, planning is already underway to ascertain how many dressers will be needed and when.

The sheer volume of different changes during the show has made my usual method of costume plotting impractical, so while I do still have a master spreadsheet, I have done each performer an individual costume plot and from there, once exact change times and locations have been established to accurately work out who will need help and when, I am going to do dresser plots so that each dresser has a scene by scene guide of exactly who they need to help, where, and when. In the mean time it is all steam ahead! Spamalot has launched!