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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"40169","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","alt":"Seuss Cast"}}]]By Krista Layfield, Lilly Theater Manager
For our production of A Seussified Christmas Carol we had a bit of a challenge. The story is written with about 30 separate characters, which can be performed by as little as 10 actors or as many as 30. So from very early on in the concept meeting process, we needed to decide how we wanted to go about costuming the actors and how many roles we felt each of them could logistically play.
Costume changes take up a certain amount of time depending on how many pieces there are or how difficult the clothing is to change. If there's a very quick change we also can “rig” the clothes to be changed very quickly. For example, we can replace buttons with Velcro or a zipper with large snaps. Sometimes the actors only have a line or two, only to reappear as a completely different character.
We also created another interesting challenge when we decided that the ghosts in the play would be able to “fly.” This meant that the actors who played Jake Marley, Christmas Past, Present, or Future would need to be very physically fit. They would also need to wear a performer flying harness as a part of their clothing which would need to be attached through their clothing to the rigging apparatus.
To help us decide how to solve these issues, we read the script out loud and timed how long it took to read overall and approximately how long an actor would have to change their costume, if necessary, depending on their lines in the script. This was a very fun meeting, seeing and hearing the production team members acting their parts out, even though they're primarily designers or flying directors or technical supervisors!
We crunched the numbers and here's the math behind A Seussified Christmas Carol:
- We discovered that we could actually perform the play with as few as 8 actors.
- All total, the actors would need to change their clothes over 40 times!
- Scrooge changes the fewest number of times, with 3 costume changes.
- One of the narrators needs to change the most, at 8 times!
- The entire costume plot of the show involves about 170 individual pieces of costumes, including, but not limited to: shirts, pants, dresses, wigs, shoes, and microphone packs.
- The actor who plays Jake Marley, Mike Hosp, has the most pieces of clothing for all of his characters and costumes—26.
- The actor who plays one of the narrators,Thomas Cardwell, has the fewest pieces of clothing—16.
Watch the costume changes in action in This Week's WOW!
You can see A Seussified Christmas Carol now through January 4 in Lilly Theater. Performances are at 1 and 3 p.m. on weekends and every day during the peak holiday schedule. See the full schedule at childrensmuseum.org. Timed tickets, included free with admission, are available at the Lower Level ticket booth on the day of the performance.
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