Dressing for Success – The Costumes Behind Once Upon a Mattress
(left to right) junior Nikki Moscony, sophmore Maya Mendoza, and junior Jessica Dillon enjoy their new work space and each others company as they create costumes for the upcoming musical
Haverford’s drama club prides itself on having many student-run departments. The student-run music and pit-orchestra are highly lauded, but frequently one aspect tends to be overlooked: the costume department.
The small club recently won a Cappie, an award given to high achieving drama clubs and performances, for last spring’s production of Beauty and the Beast. Since then, the club has gained a new work-space and doubled from a team of five to a team of ten, having gained four members and teacher sponsor, Ms. Monohan.
The new members all had different reasons for joining some of which including wanting to do a club with friends, a love of crafts, or simply a lack of anything else to do during the long rehearsals.
“God knows I’m not doing homework.” said junior member, Jessica Dillon.
In past productions the costume team has seen many challenges including organizing four-second quick changes on stage, creating costumes for inanimate objects, and organizing over 40 morph-suits for one show. However, this year the group faces the challenge of clothing a cast of more than 70 students in medieval garb.
The costumers have used many different methods to complete this monumental task such as re-purposing old costumes, borrowing from other schools, altering old clothes, and scrounging through party stores. The sheer number of and nature of the costumes needed can make things difficult but the customers are willing to tackle the challenge and work as a team with the cast to produce amazing results.
“The people make it exciting” said freshman, Riley Metzler.
Despite the many demands the costumers often face, the closeness of the group keeps the members coming back.
“I have a great little family of kids who all call me ‘Mom-o-han’ and they make things really fun and enjoyable, if they weren’t that enjoyable I probably would not come back.” said faculty sponsor, Ms. Monohan.
We all wish this ragtag family good luck as they prepare for the upcoming performances of Once Upon a Mattress on 7:00pm Friday Dec 2, 2:00pm and 7:00pm Saturday Dec 3, and 2:00pm Sunday Dec 4.
