The Drowsy Chaperone Costumes Pt 1 – The Plan & Process

This is the first in a three part series that I’m planning on the process of costuming The Drowsy Chaperone. I’ll update these links as I finish the posts. | Part 2 – The Men | Part 3 – The Women

We open The Drowsy Chaperone at Connecticut Theatre Company this Friday, December 1, and in addition to being in the ensemble, I also costumed the show! I’m honestly struggling with a bit of doubt at this moment about the costumes, I’m my own worst critic, but I think once I start to see those production videos and pictures come through I’ll feel a lot better. I am super proud of all the work I did for this show though, so let’s talk about it all. I really want to dive into detail, and there are 18 people in the cast, so I’m going to break this up into three parts. This post will be about the plan and process, and then I’ll get into the actual costumes.

The Drowsy Chaperone is a show within a show, and it’s both a reflection of nostalgia and how we hold on to art that’s important to us and a loving parody of jazz age musicals. The show starts with a modern “Man In Chair” (you never learn his real name), there’s an audience in his small apartment and he’s going to tell you about his favorite musical from 1928, called “The Drowsy Chaperone.” As he starts to play the record, the show comes to life for the audience in Man’s apartment, while Man comments on the plot (or lack thereof), songs, actors, and, eventually, what the show has meant to him in his own life. The 1928 “The Drowsy Chaperone” is about a showgirl, Janet VanDeGraff, who is leaving the stage to marry Robert Martin, and hijinks ensure with a cast of an airheaded hostess, a harried producer and another showgirl looking to take over the spotlight, gangsters posing as pastry chefs, a Latin ladies’ man, a female pilot, and the titular drunken maid of honor, the drowsy chaperone.

So in costuming this show, we have one pretty easy character, Man in Chair, and then a whole cast that needs to look appropriate for a Gilded Age house party. One of the reasons I wanted to costume this was because I really love 1920s style, primarily as represented by shows like Poirot, Jeeves and Wooster, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. It’s an interesting show to try and costume though, because I think people tend to think “flapper” when they think 1920s, and while that was definitely a style in the time period, it’s not necessarily what would have been worn in the context of this fake musical, except for Kitty (the showgirl seeking the spotlight) and maybe Janet, though she is usually more Hollywood glamour. And even though yes, these are costumes, I didn’t want them to look to “costume-y” or cheap, as this is supposed to be a glamourous wedding at a rich country house. As usual, I started with my Pinterest Board to get ideas of silhouettes, colors, and shapes. I start with museum galleries to try and find actual pieces that were worn, then move to reference images and photographs. I’ll also try to look at other costumer’s work and watch clips of the original production. I try not to get too bogged down in this though because I don’t want anything to be an immediate copy.

Then I start to sketch out some initial notes as to what I’m looking to find. Because this is community theater, and I’m a volunteer who also has a full time job, most of the show is sourced from either the theater’s costume storage or from purchases. My actual plot only starts to come together once I see what I’ve got. In addition to the overall style, there were a few specifics I needed to keep in mind:

• Four marriages happen at the end, so I needed four period wedding dresses
• Mrs. Tottendale (the hostess) sings a whole song about her “fancy dress” so it needs to be big, it needs to be fancy, and it needs to be a bit ridiculous
• The song “Show Off” takes place by the pool, and in the original there are multiple costume changes, including a twirl away skirt. I definitely wanted that twirl away moment.
• For most of the show, the ensemble acts as maids, and should be matching as housemaids in that era would be (we had an all female ensemble so we didn’t need to worry about finding matching suits as well)
• “Bride’s Lament” is a nightmare/ mental breakdown type moment, and includes lyrics about a bunny, so how could we have the cast on stage, but show that they’re really in Janet’s mind? The answer – bunny ears!

Check out the Notes tab on my costuming spreadsheet for more of my initial thoughts and ideas. I knew going into this that trying to costume period on a small budget was going to be difficult, as it’s hard to find items with those vintage silhouettes at thrift stores sometimes. But I got very lucky, we had a good amount of items in our costume storage and by starting early, I was able to check several stores and find some really great pieces. With this show I (well I and my friends) actually sewed/ altered a several items to try and fit that style more.

Somewhat shockingly, I managed to come in under budget for this show! If my and other’s time was an expense we’d be way over but yay volunteering haha! Overall there are 124 items that I would consider part of the costumes of this show, this includes shoes and some accessories. Of these items,

• 44 were provided by the actor or another cast/ production team member (a good chunk of this is the shoes)
• 38 were purchased
• 23 were in our costume storage
• 20 were sewn/made (15 of these are bunny ears)

I really relied on the help of some amazing people to help me get this altogether. In particular, my friends Leah and Jen, who are not involved in the show or even in theater at all, did a TON of work with sewing and altering to make things look good. My friend Brendon is a fellow costumer, so he went shopping with me and was always good for some moral support/ a listening ear. And then several members of the cast and production team stepped up to do some sewing and altering because people are the best. I can’t say enough about how appreciative I am for the people who helped me out with this.

In my next two posts, I’ll talk about specifics for each of the characters in the show. I know it’s probably a lot that not everyone wants to read about, but I’m trying to document what I do and build out sort of a portfolio of costumes.

I’ll finish off with a quick little video I made where you can see the bunny ears I made!