The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is a horror comedy, sort of an alien invasion-meets-zombie apocalypse story.

Paul is an average office worker who happens to hate musicals. A meteor falls to the ground in the tiny town of Hatchetfield, and people start singing and dancing. Paul and his work friends (and the cute barista from the cafe down the street) have to fight survive the musical invasion!

The musical takes place in the year 2018 (the year it was originally performed.)

The musically-infected people are explicitly associated with the color blue throughout the musical, in the script and the lyrics

I started by describing the characters' clothing styles in two or three words, for example: Absentminded Professor (Professor Hidgens) and Sleazeball Businessman (Ted) 

The script doesn't call for very many specific pieces of clothing, but there are a lot of special effects that need to be accommodated for.

Emma has a piece of metal sticking out of her leg in Act 2, so her pants need to accommodate that. We used wide-leg, ripped jeans, so the "metal piece" could stick out of there

Sam's blue brain is exposed after he's hit with a trash can lid mid-scene, so the actor needed a police hat to cover the blue brain effect.

A few clothing pieces and accessories that were needed included:

Coffee shop aprons, with blocking notes about them in two scenes

A bathrobe for Charlotte

A watch for General MacNamara

Working on theatre shows that take place in the modern day means I don't build as much, it's mostly 'shopping'

My actors have spectacular wardrobes in their daily lives that we were able to pull from

I bought a dark shirt and a tie for the actor playing Ted, who had to spit fake blood, and didn't want to get it on his own clothing. The tie I found was made from red and blue changeant fabric, which was perfect, since Ted eventually ends up infected.

I was also able to rent costume pieces from Theatre in the Round Players, including the military berets worn by the special agents.

I designed a logo for Beanie's Coffee Shop and created a digital embroidery file and made custom aprons for the coffee shop scenes (below.) Click here to learn more about that process!