Sing Out Play and Costumes

Carmen and I were involved in a play last weekend. The play was called Switching Channels.

Sing Out is a play program offered only to the 5th and 6th graders in our town. Any student who tries out is somehow involved in the play. Each student is given a minor role exposing them to theatre in a fun way. Linda Gadilauskus, a mother who grew up in Shrewsbury, participated in Sing Out as a kid herself. When her children were of the age she began the tradition again. She writes the plays herself and gives all the proceeds back Sherwood middle school (our 5th and 6th grade). Tobin participated in Sing Out in 6th grade, but I have been involved in these plays since Sarai was in 5th grade. For four years I have made/created costumes for the play. I had also been involved as the costume director. This year, life is much busier and asked that someone else step up to organize the costumes. I was still asked to create some costumes!

My job with costumes this year was to create ones for particular commercials used in the play. I had to create the Fruit of the Loom guys:

Here is the apple: I made an inner shirt so I could stuff fiber fill between the red shirt and the inner one.

Here is the fig character. Here is cut out leaves from felt and sewed them all over the shirt. I only sewed the top of the leaves so they would move freely.

and the grapes. As you can see they are covered in balloons. Each character had a hat to match their costume. My mother had made me a pumpkin costume when I was 8. Somehow, that hat is now in my possession. I used that hat and created my own pattern from which I made these hats.

a Toothbrush costume and a toothpaste costume.

Pepsodine is a made up toothpaste name. Yes, it is similar to Pepsidine, which is for sore gums. The director wrote the name into the play thinking it was a toothpaste from the 50s. The name was wrong, but we kept it this way since most people wouldn't realize the mix-up.

These took planning, searching for ideas on the web and late nights to finish them. The toothbrush is made with 500 straws shoved into a shoe box that I spray painted and covered with white fabric left over from the toothpaste costume. The long pole for the brush is a tube from wrapping paper. The girl who played the toothbrush loved her prop. She was also the fig for the Fruit of the Loom.

Here is Carmen in her announcer outfit. She is wearing a jacket I recently bought for myself.