Middle school drama students completed a costume design assignment. Check out some of these creative designs!
Erin Carr
I chose to do the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. The whole story took place during the Victorian Era so I made sure to make her dress as historically accurate while trying to also incorporate her character into it like adding the big hoop dress, arm puffs, and the loose flowy sleeves. Taking her name into consideration I added heart designs throughout her dress and also made her collar resemble a deck of cards. I chose my colors based on a playing card and her status/personality. The Queen of Hearts is the antagonist in the story so I tried to include darker colors. Black can create a more powerful vibe and her being a queen I included this as one of the colors. I also used gold because she is a royalty figure. I just tried to make her dress look as regal as possible to match her personality. I also added the flamingo croquet stick, though it’s part of her original design it’s one of her staple pieces.
Jack Villella
Costume Design: Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
The whole reason I chose the vile vegetation was because we were going to see the show at Meadowbrooke Theatre but then the whole COVID-19 thing happened and now I’m at home typing this. The first thing I thought was “Well, Audrey II’s a plant, and it grows over the length of the production, so why don’t I do TWO costumes!”I did Audrey II potted and full grown costumes. Most people (by that I mean 1) told me that the potted version should’ve been a puppet rather than someone in costume, and I told them that wasn’t part of the assignment.
So, as simplistic as I could be, I came up with the first design. The actor could be wearing black, but that wasn’t enough for me. Have you been to a haunted house, and someone’s head is on a plate and it starts talking to you? That was my idea for the first costume: Have someone kneel under a table, with a hole for the head, and have the person open and close their mouth for the scene of Audrey II’s first meal, pictured below.
For that to work, however, I’d need the actor to open their mouth, then the plant to open its mouth at the same time. I was worried about how this would work, but then I thought of the stupidest thing possible: a Star Wars Chewbacca mask with a moving mouth.
If I could just rig up the mechanics of the Chewbacca mask onto MY mask, then it would actually work! So that’s why on my mask there is a little black dot which resembles a hinge, since I don’t actually own a Chewbacca mask. Also, since we don’t want to show any neck, I thought we could just get a pot, carve out the bottom and bam: Instant accessory. Anyway, to hide most of this, I decided our actor was going to be under a table, with a tablecloth over it; that way, the actor could be hidden and the set would look totally normal! That’s the basis for the potted Audrey II costume.
The full grown Audrey II costume, however, is more a puppet. It’s like the dragon in the Shrek musical – puppet, but the addition of an actor voicing the puppet. I thought there should be a little compartment at the back of the puppet for the actor, with a mesh cover at the back of the mouth so we can still hear the microphone. I also thought that the actor should also be the puppeteer, so I also drew some little levers and buttons so that the actor can control the puppet and speak at the same time. The actor could still be wearing black, since we aren’t seeing them. The puppet could be made out of felt-like materials, and the teeth could be made out of something like a dry sponge. However, since I went into more than enough detail (and that’s totally fine) with the first costume, and the second costume is more or less, a puppet, I feel like that is all I have to say for the sinister shrub and my costume design for Audrey II.
Valentino Orsini
