OCT 2024 - Rescue

The costumes for my new play, Silent Song, were complicated. A creature had to grow from small, to big, to bigger, to huge. The cast of eight played many roles. Four actors had to be children, townspeople, rock people, and river people. Costume changes had to be carefully choreographed to avoid lulls in action and dialogue. I had designed the costumes to fit the action. Before they could be made, the customer left. The new person, hired to fill the sudden vacancy, was not pleased when she learned she had to make the costumes with help from undergraduates. She considered herself a designer, not a seamstress. She was so aggravated she asked for a meeting with me and the Chair of the Theatre Department. “Why is the director designing costumes?” she asked. “That’s my job.”

He told her. “Nancy writes plays involving a lot of movement and imagined worlds. She creates fully visualized characters. In this play she decided to design the costumes and I approved her doing so. I expect the two of you to work together. You need to focus on what works best for the play and the cast.” 

We walked out of his office together but she hurried off. When I entered the costume shop, I saw costumes in various stages of completion. I looked for the material for the big creature’s costume and couldn’t find it. I knew it had been delivered because I checked to make sure it would work. Suddenly, I noticed the material for the rock and river people was also missing. I looked to make sure she wasn’t coming in and tried her office door. Locked. 

I waited until I was sure she had left for the day and called Security. I explained who I was, how I’d inadvertently left material in the costumer’s office, would they please come and let me in so I could retrieve it. I needed the material for the play I was directing. Only half a lie.

Two security officers came, checked my ID, and let me in to the office. There, stacked in a pile was the missing material. It was too much for me to carry so I asked for their help. It took the three of us, with them doing most of the heavy lifting, to stack the material into the back seat of my car. I thanked them profusely and drove off.

I couldn’t imagine anything good coming from the costumer locking the material in her office. I didn’t trust her to make the costumes, much less have them ready for the dress rehearsal less than two weeks away. Since I can’t sew, I’d have to find someone to help.

I called a friend to ask if she knew anyone who could make the costumes. We had talked about my troubles with the costumer but she gasped when I told her the costumer had locked the material in her office. “Bring the material here. We’ll figure it out.” I showed her the drawings of the costumes. “It’s more than sewing,” said my friend. “It’s construction with no pattern. And,” she laughed perceptively, “you need them yesterday. I’ll call a woman I know from church. She made the new altar covers. Maybe she’ll have an idea. Leave the material here.” 

That night she called to say four women volunteered to help on Saturday. Two were coming with heavy duty sewing machines. I baked a bundt cake and cookies.

I arrived around 9:30 Saturday morning to help set up. The four women arrived a few minutes later, excited by the project. We enlisted help from my friend’s oldest son who was about the height of the actor playing the creature. Two women draped and redraped the material, creating the shape I’d designed, then figuring out the best way to close the bottom in ways the actor could access himself. Her son suggested buttons. I groaned. Button holes are hard to make. Not so for the women. In an amazingly short amount of time they’d sewed six button holes and six buttons. Her son tried the costume on, closing the bottom, moving around, using rulers to poke the fabric above his outstretched arms. “Works fine from my end,” he said. “How do I look?”

“Great!” I said, my worries dissolving by the minute. “Even better than my imagination. Now let me see how easily you can get out.” No problem. 

Once I explained how the rock and river people needed to function, the women enjoyed making a few prototypes and then we picked the one we all liked. They sewed. I glued. By five o’clock all the costumes were finished. I offered to pay them. No takers. I offered them dinner. Their husbands were waiting. “Isn’t there any way I can thank you?” I asked, overwhelmed by gratitude.

“Sure,” said one of the women. “Give us tickets for the play. We’d like to see our costumes in action.”

“Done! Let me know what day and time you’d like to go and the number of tickets you want. They’ll be reserved in each of your names.”

Opening night was a big success. The women received a standing ovation from the cast. 

The costumer left at the end of the semester. 

Have you asked for help and been surprised at the response. If so, what was that like?

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OCTOBER 2024 MONTHLY STORIES