As promised, here are the Birds….
Oh, and I was wrong about it being
shorter. Blame the tail!
Gertrude McFuzz is Horton’s next door neighbour.
Although she is in love with Horton, he doesn’t notice her as he is too busy
looking after the Whos. In the song The
One Feathered Tail of Miss Gertrude McFuzz, Gertrude blames her pitiful
little tail for not catching his eye. Dismayed, she comes across the flamboyant
Mayzie LaBird who is accompanied by three beautiful Bird Girls; all decked out
with feathers galore. Amazing Mayzie describes how she once
had a sad little tail like Gertrude but a visit to the doctor means she now has
an amazing feathered tail. On Mayzie’s suggestion, Gertrude visits Doctor Dake by
the Lake and persuades him to give her some pills so she can grow her own magnificent
tail to become Amazing Gertrude. Encouraged
by the first results, Gertrude takes even more pills and her tail becomes so enormous
she can’t even fly……….
Gertrude McFuzz was played by the amazingly talented Rebecca Hazel (Becki). I was in awe of Becki throughout all the rehearsals as she
was always in character - a “drab but determined little bird” who adores
Horton. Both her speaking and singing voice were perfect and she demonstrated fabulous
facial expressions and body language to portray this little-girl-like bird who stood
by Horton all the way when everyone else was against him.
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| Rebecca Hazel as Gertrude McFuzz (Copyright Peter Cook) |
I wanted to make her a
little-girl dress. Pretty but understated in comparison to the other characters.
I found a lovely vintage pale blue chiffon
dress which fitted Becki perfectly.
As it was full length and A-line, I took it
up from the waist to create a short full skirted dress that came to well above
her knees.
Becki is very slender, and I added
a really full net petticoat to create a round bird figure that emphasised her
fragile look.
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| Gertrude McFuzz (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Although mostly covered by the blue dress, flashes of the shocking
pink petticoat gave a lovely splash of colour as she moved, and was brilliant
when she had her feet-kicking tantrum lying on the floor (with the addition of
a pair of last minute matching pink knickers!)
While Gertrude’s dress was really easy to make - her tail was not! I
needed to find a way of making a tail that would “grow” from a single feather to
something amazing on stage. It also had to be lengthened for the second half
and then finally be “plucked off “quickly on stage, revealing the original
single feather. I convinced the Directors
it would be a doddle, but the more I saw of the staging during rehearsals, the
more sleepless nights I got.
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| Gertrude's One Feathered Tail (Copyright Peter Cook) |
With a bit of advice from my kids
(who are great at seeing outside the box) I eventually came up with a workable
solution that involved multiple tails that fastened to a belt around her waist and were worn in different variations for different scenes.
Gertrude starts off with a
single tail - I used a really sad, slightly bent turkey feather, dyed yellow,
which I attached to her belt with a piece of Velcro, making it removable.
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| Gertrude's Grows a Tail (Copyright Peter Cook) |
When Gertrude visits the Doctor
and takes the pills, we arranged the curtains so that I could rip off her single
tail, and quickly knot a multi coloured feather boa into her belt - all the
audience saw was Gertrude reacting to the sensation of feathers sprouting from
her back.
This first new tail was pretty Amazing!
But Gertrude went back for more pills to make her tail grow MORE - luckily the scene finished off stage so the longer tail could be added back stage!
Gertrudes's bigger and longer tail was made from 20
different coloured feather boas stitched together, and stretched the length of
the stage - she had to really work out her movements around stage when this was
on!
The longer tail was designed to
work with and without the first big tail, and fastened to her belt in a way
that allowed it to be “plucked” off easily in a later scene, revealing the
single feather, which had been re-attached towards the final scenes.
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| Gertrude's multicoloured tail (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Confused?
I was! I kept trying to attach the wrong combination of tails at the
wrong time and in the end, my 13 year old daughter took over and waited back stage
between her scenes to help Becki out!
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| Lauren Carless as Mayzie LaBird (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Mayzie LaBird - what a gorgeous, glamorous, sexy creature. Think Latin! Think Salsa! Singing some really strong
numbers,
Lauren Carless, who played
Mayzie, sashayed her way across the stage, flirted with the Cat, and used all
of her feminine charms to persuade Horton to babysit her egg!
Her dress was created from a
simple lycra diagonal-cut red salsa dress with a very low back, to which I
added a silver and red lace overlay.
Lauren is a great dancer, and the thick
feather boa sewn to the hem added a lovely weight which emphasised her swaying
movements.
Mayzie’s tail had to be Amazing!
I started with some red feather boas, similar to Gertrude’s. However, I didn’t
think they were “sexy” enough, so I added some A Grade ostrich feathers just
above the feather boas. I curled them using a set of hair straighteners (a tip
I found on the internet) -and they sat beautifully on the curve of her back and
Lauren loved it. Very salsa!
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| Mayzie on the Nest (Copyright Peter Cook) |
I wanted Mayzie to have a salsa
or carnival style feathered head dress, but these were really expensive to buy
or hire. While browsing the internet, I came across a shop selling coloured head
dress frames and a YouTube “How to” video.
I ordered a red frame for Mayzie
and three for the Bird Girls, together with a load of lower grade ostrich feathers.
I was really impressed with how easy the instructions were to follow - the most
difficult bit was keeping the glue away from the feather ends.
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| Bird Girls (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Mayzie has an entourage of
beautiful Bird Girls, brilliantly played
by Ellie, Laura and Jessica.
The Bird Girls needed to be
showy, but not as Amazing as Mayzie! I thought I’d go for a Las Vegas Show Girl
look, in bright colours that would stand out against the other colours I’d used
for Jungle Animals.
I made long sweeping tails from
sparkly chiffon stiffened with netting, and sewed them to a trio of lycra leotards
in pink, orange and lilac. Placing the tails low on the back created a very
curvy shape which was emphasised by the elasticated sequin braid and feather
boas.
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| Song Birds(Copyright Peter Cook) |
At the dress rehearsals, the girls were a bit nervous wearing such skimpy
costumes, and I admit to having a few concerns myself. However by opening
night, with the addition of shimmer tights, silver shoes, and striking make up,
all misgivings had gone, and the Bird Girls were having a ball.
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| Head dresses (Copyright Peter Cook) |
The Bird Girls' head dresses were
made in the same way as Mayzie’s, using feathers in the three colours.
I was a
bit worried that they might come off as the Birds danced around, but with strong
coloured elastic secured under hair buns and lots and lots of hair grips, they
didn’t move at all!
So there we are. The story of five
amazing, beautiful and very talented Birds.
Or were there six?
Kayed, who played our Cat in the
Hat, loves to improvise, and on the opening night decided he wanted to join in
one of the Bird Girls routines. Without telling the Directors, he persuaded one
of the little Jungle animals to “lend” him her tutu as a skirt/tail. The
audience loved it, but he got a major ticking off as he’d stretched the tutu! Undeterred,
on the second night he borrowed a petticoat from one of the Adult WHOs but it
looked a bit dull.
I took pity on him, and on the
afternoon of the third and final performance, I found an old black net
petticoat and added satin and fur trim to create red and white stripes to match
his costume. As you can see, he absolutely loved it!
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| The Cat in the Hat joins the Bird Girls (Copyright Peter Cook) |
My next
and final blog on Seussical Costumes will be introduce you to the rest of the
animals from the Jungle of Nool,
starting with some very mischievous monkeys, as well as a Very Important Person
on the Planet of Who! There are a few stops on our way and if we get time, we'll also take a visit to the Circus.
The
Old Button is more than happy for you to use these costume ideas as
inspiration for your own production.
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