Yesterday before rehearsal for Leading Ladies (remember, that play I mentioned once or twice?), I got a Facebook message that the OD wanted a photograph of the cast. In costume. That night. Yikes! Oh, for non-local readers, if any, the OD is the Utica Observer-Dispatch, one of the local newspapers. Of course we have been working on costumes right along, but with a cast of eight, numerous costume changes and two cross-dressing characters, these things take time.
I emailed the cast to give them a heads-up and searched my house for a few things. One thing I needed was Steven’s three-piece pin-striped suit. He has worn that suit for roughly 859 plays since the late ’80s (I just made that number up; I really have no idea). Here is the story of the suit:
Back when we were merely dating, we had gone to the thrift store in Potsdam, NY (we lived up north at the time). I was looking for men’s blazers, which I love to wear. Steven was just looking. He found a practically brand new, dark blue, three-piece pin-striped suit that fit perfectly. When we went to pay for it, the lady said in kind of a hushed tone, “You know, three piece suits are eight dollars.” I worked at JC Penney at the time, and I knew that suit had cost at least a hundred bucks new. I was happy to pay eight dollars for it.
Getting back to 2016, I got to Ilion Little Theatre (ILT) early and once again went through the costume room upstairs. It took me several trips to bring down all the stuff I pulled. I’m certainly going to get my exercise putting it all away. As cast members started showing up I got them started trying things on. One fellow went upstairs in search of a suit. When he came down with one, I sent him back up with the actor playing his son to find another one (um, another suit, not another son).
We all had great success with our finding and trying, although I could not convince one cast member that the mauve hat does NOT go with the blue dress. She won’t wear it, because as her director I told her not to, but she is not happy about it. However, we were able to begin rehearsal not too late with everybody wearing something (although naked rehearsal shots would indeed cause a sensation in the local paper). The secretary of ILT was there to take the picture to send to the OD. She got some good action shots and one or two posed pictures.
Alas, this is not a photo blog, so I cannot share them here. Perhaps one day I will figure out how. Don’t get your hopes up too high, though: I probably will not be able to talk the actors into naked rehearsal shots.
