As promised, here is a recap of my delightful costume adventures for my school’s spring musical, Beauty & the Beast. Or, as they say in Spain, “La Bella y la Bestia”.

After last year’s lovely adventures in Spain over Easter break, I was compelled to return this year. It was even more fun because of my additional year’s worth of vocabulary, and I really enjoyed speaking the language as best I could, learning about the culture, and, of course, shopping. I had a great conversation with a cute old man who owned a fabric store; I told him that I worked at a fabric store, too, and he said he had been working with fabric for 50 years! It was so much fun.

Spring break was conveniently placed a week before Tech Week (a.k.a. Hell Week), therefore even in another country, thoughts of the show and the costumes still flitted through my head from time to time. So when we reached our hotel in Madrid and walked around the corner where the La Bella y La Bestia marquee was shining, I was taken aback and unbelievably excited. Two of the other girls on the trip were my castmates, so we begged our chaperones to let us see the show, and they relented. It was even “La Noche de Los Teatros”, or “Theatre Night” in Madrid, so tickets were a great deal cheaper than usual. I was very grateful and felt extremely blessed for the miraculous circumstances.

The show was fantastic. Since I knew half the lines anyway, I didn’t have trouble understanding anything, and it was interesting to try and translate what bits I could. It was a Broadway-quality production, and I was blown away by the voices and the dances and, of course, the costumes. I brought home plenty of costume inspiration and was ready for my huge challenge.

From the start, I had known that this was a huge costume and tech show. But once the cast list was up in January, I was ready and willing to work. But somehow, my directors and I didn’t meet eye-to-eye; they always wanted to hear my ideas, and encouraged me to come up with new ideas, but after I worked on a few things they would say it “wasn’t quite right” and ask that I “please fix it up a bit” — basically, start over. So I learned quickly, and just did what they wanted. But they stopped telling me what to do, and didn’t want me working on my own ideas, so I was left to… sit, i guess, and contemplate life. Which doesn’t get much sewing done.

Luckily, a nearby community theatre had recently done the show, and were generous enough to share some of the big costumes with us. That was a lifesaver, because the process of “have idea” - “get it approved” - “work a bit” - “approve again” - “finish” - would have taken forever.

So by the last two weeks, I had fabric up to my ears and was sewing like a crazy person. It all came together, though, as it always does, and I survived. This was my last show, of course, since I’m a senior, but given the option I would never be in charge of costumes again. It was crazy.

My pride and joy was the little purple rug… she did cartwheels and such across the stage, and I couldn’t be more pleased with how her costume turned out. She reverse-adopted me as her mother, so she tagged along with me in the opening scene as well (sans-rug) as I delivered my famous, “I need six eggs!”. She also kept me company through all the hours of sewing, and she was a great friend.

I was also very pleased with how the silly girls (Gaston’s little stalkers) turned out. The other production only had three of them, but we had six. They provided plaid skirts and vests, so my job was to make 3 solid vests and 3 solid skirts. I just traced their vests and made up a new pattern as best I could, and it worked wonderfully! I was very excited. The skirts were just simple elastic-waist poofy skirts.

Unfortunately I don’t have any good photos of my spoons, knives, and forks… They all wore tuxedo shirts, purple vests, and black pants, and wore a corresponding utensil as a headpiece. The headpieces were cut from foam core (which takes a ridiculously long time) then covered in glittery fabric. There were plates, too, who wore their fabric-covered foam core as a backpack. The teacups had a rim made from a hula hoop covered in fabric then stuffed. Fabric came down from the rim and was gathered around the waist, plus they had handles. They still ended up very floppy, though, and didn’t look as good as I had hoped.

But it all came together, which, at one point, seemed more than I could hope for. It was a successful show and a very fun time.. everyone needs a bit of craziness, I suppose!