Summer Theater in the Park Costume Plans Outlined

By Cathy Craig

When Summer Theater in the Park presents its five productions in alternating repertory beginning July 6, audiences will be treated to a host of dramatic and musical styles and a look into five different areas of costume history.

Responsibility for the over 200 costumes required rests with Vickie Willis and assistants Connie Scroggins and Karen Ratliff. Mrs. Willis is no stranger to the job, having costumed productions for Chrysler High Thespians, First Nighters, Inc., and Summer Theater in the Park 1977. Her latest achievement was the design and construction of the costumes for the highly regarded “A Grand Night for Oscar” for the Fini Awards Night of First Nighters.

Misses Scroggins and Ratliff are new to theater in our area. Miss Scroggins is a fashion retailing major at Ball State University and is completing her degree with a practicum in costuming with Summer Theater. Miss Ratliff is a sophomore at Bob Jones University in South Carolina where she has been a costume shop assistant.

Also helping with costume construction have been members of the company of Helen Watson and Ruth Jackson of Lewisville , Jo Carter and Edithe Tipton of Knightstown, and Kim Pound of Mt. Summit .

First to join the repertory of Summer Theater is the musical “Ben Franklin in Paris ,” a retelling of the great man’s attempts to win French aid for America ’s revolutionary cause.

The show presents the costumer with a wide range of costumes to design and execute. Mrs. Willis has designed the elegant dress of the court of Louis XVI in shades of blue, gold and white to suggest the effeteness of the period. Costumes abound with lace, ribbons, bows, appliqué, ruffles, and frills of the 1770s.

Ladies’ gowns are designed with dropped, pointed waistlines, hooped skirts and commode, the latter a specially designed roll around the hips typical of the era. Gentlemen of the court wear fancy tail coats, rich waists over ruffled shirts and short, tight pantaloons popular then.

America ’s Ben Franklin and his two grandsons are dressed in earthy shades of brown, green, rust, burnt orange and gray to suggest the rustic and tough qualities of the colonies struggling for independence.

French peasants and rabble are attired in a layered look of rough fabrics, subdued stripes and plain colors. Women wear the unusual headpieces that characterized the era, large hats over dust caps.

Other costumes for the production include American Marine uniforms of 1977, monk robes and military attire.

“My Three Angels” opens July 8 at the Shelter House. The comedy is set in the penal colony of French Guiana in 1910 and concerns the antics of three Devil’s Island convicts and the merchant class family whose problems they solve by unorthodox means.

Female characters will be portrayed in restored authentic gowns of the time received by the Opera House Guild through a donation from the Jean Bond Hough estate. Shoes, hats, gowns and purses also from the contribution will serve as accessories.

Felix Ducotel, the family patriarch, wears the somber black and gray-striped frock coat to advertise his position while summer visitors from France sport the whites and pastels of men’s traveling suits at the turn of the century.

Mrs. Willis reminded that colors would be kept cool to contrast with the tropical atmosphere created by the set.

“On With the Show,” a tribute to the music of Irving Berlin which opens July 11, finds the cast in three distinct costume changes. Coinciding with the musical themes of the production, performers will be dressed in pre-World War I ragtime garb, authentic military apparel, representing all branches of the service in the major conflicts of the 20^th century, and in contemporary formal array.

In the July 13^th opening of “Little Mary Sunshine,” the gentle spoof on the Jeanette MacDonald0-Nelson Eddy operetta, heroic forest rangers will be uniformed a la Canadian Mounties. Young finishing school ladies will be fitted in shirtwaist dresses made of sophisticated dimity, while Little Mary Sunshine, the homespun heroine, is radiant in yellow and white-checked gingham.

The final production to be introduced into the repertory July 18 is “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” According to Mrs. Willis it presents very special challenges, such as capturing the mood of reality versus dream sequences, in costume.

In the opening and closing portions of the play, the characters interact in a “real” world depicted in set and dress by blacks, whites and grays. But in the rest of the tale, the central figures, young lovers, fall asleep in the woods and awake to the enchanted world of Oberon’s forest, brilliantly alive with color.

Taking inspiration from the Erte look, named for the Harper Bazaar fashion designer famous for clothing the wealthy in the first quarter of the 20^th century, Mrs. Willis said that draping effects in costume design, closures, sleeves, and lines characteristic of Erte have been used. Bows and streaming ribbons will accent hand-sewn frocks simulating leaves, feathers, bark, moss, and fur that wonderland forest personalities would don.

Season tickets for Summer Theater in the Park are available through opening night July 6. They may be purchased, as can tickets to individual performances, at the box office located in memorial Park Shelter House or by calling the Summer Theater box office at 521-3560.