I’d like to continue sharing the story of the Seussical
the Musical costumes by looking at the characters as they appear in the songs.
The show opens with The Cat in the Hat telling a small boy
about The Things you can Think in
your imagination and conjures up a magical world of crazy animals and little
people too tiny to see. We see an elephant hearing small voices on a speck of
dust in Horton Hears a Who , only to
find he is ridiculed by a kangaroo and the other animals from the Jungle of
Nool in The Biggest Blame Fool.
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| Kayed Mason as The Cat in the Hat (Copyright Peter Cook) |
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I had lots of fun with the costume for The Cat in the Hat. The very talented Kayed Mason who played the Cat has the most amazing energy and he danced,
jumped, crawled and pirouetted his way throughout the whole performance. Lots
of movement room was needed here, so I started with a pair of black lycra jazz
trousers. A tail cost, white bib and
floppy red bow, teamed with the famous red and white hat completed the typical
Cat in The Hat look.
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| The Cat in the Hat interviews Mayzie (Copyright Peter Cook) |
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However, Kayed relishes crazy costumes, and was up for a slightly
off beat version of The Cat, so I altered
the trousers down to give a lean look and added a slim fitting red and white
sleeveless t-shirt under his jacket. Adding cuffs, red braces and red and white
stripy socks shifted the look into something a little more zany, especially
when he took his jacket off here to play The Cat as a Reporter in The Biggest
Blame Fool!
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| Lloyd Davies as Horton (Copyright Peter Cook) |
The role of Horton
the Elephant was played by a very tall and slender Lloyd Davies who constantly teased throughout rehearsals by the
need to use pillows to add to his girth.
However, for the show I agreed with the Directors that his
costume could be based on a hired donkey costume and “Fat Suit”.
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| Last minute changes! |
For his ears I covered the skull part of an
old felt hat with grey fleece fabric and sewed on two big pink and grey ears.
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| Tap Dancing Horton (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Following the first night I felt his costume needed something
more, so I tacked a big pink “H” in fleece fabric to his stomach. I had to make sure I could remove it without
leaving marks though otherwise the Costume Hire Firm would not be happy!
As well as a great singer and actor, Lloyd is a trained ballet
and tap dancer, so I dyed old ballet shoes grey to match his outfit, allowing
him to have a very easy quick change into tap shoes for a little tap solo at
the end of the show.
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| Emily Langford as Sour Kangaroo (Copyright Peter Cook) |
The Sour Kangaroo was
actually the last costume I made. In Dr Suess’s book, The Sour Kangaroo is
a purple character, but I wanted her to be in gold as I thought it would be a
better contrast with the other costumes I had created.
I scoured eBay and begged friends for gold coloured ball gowns
and eventually found a gorgeous gold halterneck dress.
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| Sour with Young Kangaroo (Copyright Peter Cook) |
This colour looked amazing on Emily Langford who played "Sour" but we both felt it needed
sleeves to blend the dress into the Young Kangaroo hand puppet that she has to hold
up all through the show.
I cut off the
bottom of the overlay skirt to make sleeves, and bought some gold satin to make the
halter neck into a full bodice. I added some sparkly bronze fabric to the
central panel to suggest a kangaroo’s pouch, but I kept the style of the dress
long with simple lines to give the impression of a long tailed creature.
Emily has an amazing voice and gives a very powerful performance and I wanted her costume to portray a proper Diva moment. I think she looks like a beautiful medieval princess
and very haughty – a perfect feel for this character who rules the other
animals.
Just like the other animal characters, the Citizens of the Jungle
of Nool needed to be representative of creatures rather than wearing furry animal
costumes. I wanted bright colourful shiny animals that allowed lots of movement
to go with the great choreography. Having made many dance costumes for my
children I realised that I could customise some lycra costumes I already made
and had found on eBay. I hoped it would speed up the costume making
time if I didn’t have to do everything from scratch, and I liked the fact I was
recycling unwanted costumes.
Here are just a few of the Jungle animals, I’ll be showing more
in future blogs.
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| Butterfly, Leopard and Lizard (Copyright Peter Cook) |
The Blue Butterfly
was the first outfit I made. It started with a metallic lycra cat suit I had
bought a few years back but was never used. I created enormous wings from a blue
and silver lace and attached them to the arms and back of a silver and blue
over bodice. It looked really effective when the arms were raised which
featured a lot in the dance moves. Holly
put her hair into high pony tails to create antennae and painted wings on her
face with sparkly pink, green and silver face paints.
My eldest Hedd (in the middle) really wanted to
wear a Green Snow Leopard crop
top and hotpants I had bought off eBay. It looked stunning but I felt was a tad skimpy for this
production. I cut up an old black dance bodysuit and sewed a mesh middle panel between
the shorts and top. I also added anklets to the black tights. Her swingy tail is a gorgeous fluffy lime marabou
string I sewed to the shorts, which she found great for swishing about.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d get the two teenage boy Jungle
Citizens into lycra but I really wanted their outfits to be as bright at the
girls. Starting with Jamie. We had a chat and happily found a
compromise! The Red Lizard is based on a red and silver lycra boys dance vest (again from eBay) with added fabric
spikes and a tattoo motif that he wore over his own black t-shirt and joggers. A fab punk
wig in red and black made a great spiky lizard crest.
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| Green Tree Frog (Copyright Peter Cook) |
Laura had asked if she could be a Green Tree Frog. I bought a shiny
green leotard from eBay and added a green net tutu to get a froggy shape. However, it was looking a bit dull so I
inserted sparkly spotty lycra panels to the front and back. I cut a pair of
green dance tights into leggings and armlets, and used the spotty fabric as
trim. Her mum customised an old pair of orange
cotton gloves for the “sucker hands” and I dyed some ballet shoes bright orange
for her “sucker feet”.
(Laura’s
mum was one of our fabulous make up ladies – they did a great job copying the motifs from the costumes onto faces and necks.)
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| Lion (Copyright Peter Cook) |
As well as being a Jungle animal, Nadya
needed to be a creature in the circus. Luckily she was cast as a Circus Lion
which worked perfectly for the Jungle too. Whew –I only needed to do one
costume.
Despite looking on eBay for ages, I struggled to find something
suitable in her size. In the end I bought a couple of child size gold/orange
outfits, including one for a 3-4 year old, and cut them up. Piecing them into
an outfit to fit a young teenager was like doing patchwork, and it is a good
thing lycra is so forgiving and stretchy.
In the end she looked fabulous in a leotard and
leggings with attached flowing cape to suggest a mane. Although in hindsight, it
would have been easier to have bought fabric and made it from scratch!
I think I’ll leave you here for a little while, but I’ll continue
the story next time with a visit to the little Seussical creatures who live on the
Planet of Who.
The Old Button is more than happy for you to use these costume ideas as inspiration for your own production.
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The Old Button but please respect the copyright of the photos, and do
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