SINGIN' IN THE RAIN costumes: MAKE 'EM LAUGH dummy

Wow - I went straight from finishing one musical production to the next one!  

(Practically... I finished this one the first week in December, then my whole family got sick with 2 types of flu through Christmas, we were better by New Years, and I started THIS musical in January!)   

I was hired by Ponderosa High School Theatre to be the Costume Director for this show:

The interesting thing about working on costumes on a high school level is that my crew is students.  I get to train them by example, and on a practical level, teach them skills so they can one day do this themselves if they so desire.  I have a great set of 5 girls that I have gotten to know and hope to stay in touch with for years to come.     

One of the first things I sewed up for the show was the dummy from Cosmo's "Make 'Em Laugh" scene.

Here's the clip from the movie:  My 4-year old thinks this is funniest thing to watch!  Personally, I enjoy it more every time I see it.  Very catchy indeed.





Here's a few peeks into how I made it:

I had traced my 16-year old son's outline onto pattern paper to get proportions and an outline for size.  Then I made a few adaptations into a paper pattern and cut it out of a sturdy muslin.  2 body pieces on the fold, 4 arm pieces, and 4 lower leg pieces. 

After sewing each unit individually (lower legs, arms, body), I stuffed them, then joined the units into one headless body.  I used stuffing from old pillows that I took apart - gotta love recycling!

I used bed-size pillows to fill the body torso - they fit perfectly!  That pillow that looks like it could be a head for the dummy is NOT a head.  It is an extra pillow that we brought to rehearsal just in case it needed  to be "rounder" in the middle...we ended up using it.  I hand-sewed the top closed. 

Off to rehearsal to try it out!  

"Don'cha know everyone wants to laugh?"

It was a hit!  Our Cosmo loved it and his choregraphy is wonderful and hilarious - they make a beautiful scene together!

Stay tuned for more costume highlights to come...



UPDATE:  Here are some performance pictures of our famous dummy with Cosmo!

Curtain call!

Aren't they great?

And here is a link to the video of their performance.



{FYI, I was the Costume Director for Ponderosa High School's "Singin' In The Rain".  This play was directed by the fantastic Geoffrey Reynolds - look for us on Broadway one day ;) ;) }

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