Well the show went great - and as is the goal of every job - I made a great contact with the director. Cut to 2 years later and to my surprise i get a all from the director. He is now the director of summer entertainment for the Gaylord National Resort and this summer they were planning shows and wanted to have roaming characters to interact with the guests: sort of like at Disney. So I was hired to build a male and a female pirate.
I had 5 weeks, a huge budget and it was going to be an on going project, when new actors come in or things needed to be replaced, I would be making the replacement clothes as well. Great gig!
Then a few days later I got another call - another costume designer had dropped out, and they wanted me to make two more characters: Skip (a surfer dude) and Skittles (his bratty little sister)
Great - more money! And who wouldn't love that?!
So I plunged ahead, swatched fabric, started making patterns, budgeted for shoes, wigs, and accessories. I was set for a fitting the weekend of Mothers Day, so needless to say I was working like a dog days and late into the morning to get things ready. And I have to say - this was some of my best work. All garments were very well made, and I thought looked great!
Well then I get the call. The whole event has been CANCELED! Yep all that work up in smoke. Well, after I stopped freaking out, I discovered that the Gaylor is actually owned by the Grand Ol' Oprey which was under 11 feet of water. The flooding in Nashville had effected this project. They needed to redirect the money for the summer programs to help in the drying out of the theatre. I stopped all production and sent them what I had compleated. They agreed to pay me a third of my salary, and reimburse me for all the materials I had purchased - which so far was over $900.00. I manged to style the costumes in the shape they were in so I could at least have a record of what it was that I had done thus far. With any luck the project will be remounted next year and we can pick up where we left off....
Until then, here are the pirate couple. I really hope one day I can revisit this project and see it through to completion.
Adam - the male pirate - got a striped cotton "poet" shirt, blue/grey silk vest with real wooden buttons, black twill pants with a slight pattern to it and a coat of burgundy velveteen. NOTE - this was made to the point of fittings, so that is why it has no lapels, and only one sleeve.
Morgan - the female pirate - got a green cotton petticoat, and a great brown tweed wool overskirt. Her blouse was made of a light weight textured cotton. It is off the shoulder and I gave it elongated sleeves and tucked around the bust. The highlight of the costume is the corset. It is made of 2 different colors of pony ultra suede, backed onto denim and them boned. I wish I had gotten the chance to finish it with the trim and all that I had planned...hopefully next year I can post about that!!
