How to Stay Organized When Costuming a School Musical

Creating costumes for a school musical may seem like a creative endeavour, but it relies heavily on good organization skills to make it work.  All your wonderful costumes won't be noticed if one kid has to go on stage in a black T-shirt.  Or, God forbid, he has to sit out this number because there's no costume for him.

If you don't feel up to the task, get yourself a costume manager, and tell them what you need help with.  Give them a list on a clipboard and tell them to keep track of everything. Hey, maybe they could collate your expenses for the finance department, too!

You might want to keep all costumes with you. My colleague Miriam told me this after I mentioned some of the mishaps below.  She said she just kept all the small props in the back of her car, only pulling them out when needed for rehearsals, and personally taking them back afterward.  She was (rightly) afraid all her hard work would be wasted when something was lost or damaged.  

Next time, I would use the actors' boxes to store only personal items (like costumes they put together themselves, make-up, etc) and would not leave 'my' costumes laying around.  It's not a question of not trusting the kids.  Alright, maybe it is, but it's just some added insurance.  If I do allow kids to put their costumes in the boxes, I would label and issue them like a library book.  Then they would understand the responsibility.
 

Label each costume with a kid's name, or have them one size fits all. If they are one size fits all, and not labeled, then keep them yourself.  I found that the only costumes that went missing were from the chorus. Garments that were unique or labeled never seemed to be a problem, oddly...

Count, count, count again. I had trouble with this one a few times.  For example, poppy head pieces went missing, and we knew we had had enough.  But when were they lost?  Was it me, the hair and make-up crew or the  actors? Because I hadn't been religiously keeping tabs I didn't know and couldn't look for them.

So, the night before the performance I was making replacements, having to paint fabric because I didn't have enough remnant. It's tough to sew wet fabric.

And then (again, the day before the performance), the  tornadoes complained they were one costume short.  We were positive we had just ironed and stacked up the 11 needed, and insisted the kids scour backstage and find the missing one.  They looked for about half an hour before one girl said she was new to the group and maybe she wasn't on the list.  Sure enough, there were 12 tornado dancers.  

Thank goodness her mum could sew and I had enough remnant backstage and the sewing directions still in my binder!  Whew.  She took home a plastic bag and brought back a costume ready for the performance the next morning.  Thanks, Mum!

My lesson there is to continually count and ask the director about any changes in the line-up.  She has a maelstrom in her head by this point, and you need to look after this detail yourself, or maybe your costume manager can.

With sewing bees, always write down who takes home what, with phone number, date, and number of garments.  And of course, check them off when the come back to you.  In the end, another garment that went missing was Kalidah tunics.  I really had not the foggiest idea what went wrong there.  Had they been sent home with a sewing mum and forgotten?  Had I lost them?  Had I lost count and not made enough in the first place? I think the last one is the most probable, but the end result was the same--another last-minute panic I could do without.


This post sums up just about the worst of my experiences doing costumes for this musical. A little more organization would have avoided these problems, and I would have finished the whole thing feeling much healthier and happier.


Still, for me this was a wonderful experience, and I know next time I'll do it so much better!