SNIPPETS OF LIFE BACKSTAGE

When you work in close proximty with the same group of people for many years, you become a family. Albiet a disfunctional and often warped family, but still a family.

During Hunchback of Notre Dame: A Musical Adventure, the Gypsies / characters took being a gypsy to heart. In fact one of the openning crew wardrobe dressers quit Disney soon after the show opened and became a gypsy in real live. Now, that's a bit extreme, I'll admit it.

Backstage, we were always pulling pranks on each other. Snowball, the lifesize horse puppet, was used in the first scene, then after that it was more or less a dressing table. The stilt walking gypsy undressed in that corner and we learned early on that his dew rag (head wrap), was easily mis-placed, kicked up under things, or in other ways simply lost. So Snowball's ear was 'the official costume preset space for the dew rag' during the entire 7 year run of the show. I loved hiding out under the puppet and when the dresser would stop to preset the performer's costume, i'd reach out from under the puppet and throw the shoes across the floor. She'd reset them. I'd toss them in different direction. The poor lady would get so confused. Then I'd reach out and grab her leg, she'd scream and run. Usually after the fact i'd get threatened with some form of retaliation. . . It never came.

We had one person who was very jumpy. The cast knew that and they were always reaching through the clothes rack and grabbing her. She'd scream every time. (You would think after a while, she'd learn.) It was fun messing with the Equity cast members too. One of the gargoyle's lines during a song was 'I ask for FAME'. This cast member was getting ready to step out on stage and a fellow cast member casually walked passed and said, 'I ask for PAIN.' Sure enough, the gargoyle went out and during his solo sang, 'I ask for pain.' When he got back stage, he was cussing up a storm. He said he felt the word come out, but by then it was too late.

During the big Riverdance craze, they had a 'Riverdance show' where when anyone had to move across stage, they did like they were in Riverdance. I don't think the stage manager ever caught on. One of the gypsy's got a new hat. We nicknamed it the misfit elf hat. It would fall off his head every time he went on stage. When the rest of the cast decided to play keep away and kicked the hat all over stage one show, the stage manager made our costumer bring back his dew rag.

The Muppets have had many incarnations over the years. The very first one was Here Comes the Muppets. It was a stage show located where the Voyage of the Little Mermaid is now. One of the giant props / set pieces they had was the front of a monorail (as if they had ran it into the theater.) Apperantly there was quite a bit of room in the nose of the prop, because I was for warned that they loved kidnapping costumers and making them ride out on the stage hidden in the monorail prop.

Story has it that one of the precious children (characters) frantically called for the dresser to help him. The Dresser we'll call 'M' ran to help and came face to face with YODA. It scared to pee out of her. The performer had a rubber Yoda mask and when 'M' saw it she went to the floor in the fetal postion in an full blown anxiety attack. She laughs about it now, so we can look back and laugh with her. When you aren't expecting to see a freaky green shriveled up old man, it can really mess with your head.

I remember the first time i saw Chewbacca. I hate to admit it, but the first words that came to mind wher was What the Hell is That and why is IT walking toward me. Later me and Chewy would become great friends, but that first inmpression will always stay with me.

Muppets 3D movie has Sweetums. A big furry rag-a-muffin that comes out in the theater to look for Bean Bunny. One night, a Sweetums costume was laid out on the couch in the greenroom in such a way that is looked like some one was inside. They took a metal bucket put some water into with chunks of bread - instant fake vomit. And they left it for the morning cast to find. Early the next morning, Dresser 'M' came to set up for the day and saw this. thinking there was someone inside that had gotten sick and passed out. She called the paramedics. Let's just say, they failed to see the humor in it and she ended up getting a reprimend on her record.

Summers are brutal in Florida and during the Muppets on Location show there came an era of experimenting with personal cooling units. One was a shirt and pants with tubing sewn to it so that ice water could be pumped through it. Sounds doable, until the moment you realize the titty bitty connector that joins the shirt tubing with the pants tubing has just came disconnected. Let's just say, after seeing Kermit 'peeing' on stage, the tubing cooling units were soon scrapped.

I believe in giving fair and equal time to other areas of the park as well. Way back in the beginning days of the Studios, the Wicked Witch at GMR (the Great Movie Ride)broke a hydraulic line and it looked like she was peeing too. I was also told that during Tarzan's swing over the tram, he lost his loin cloth. When asked if he was anatomically correct, we never got an answer. Hmmmm, I wonder why?

Voyage of the Little Mermaid is a show has seen it's fair share of train wrecks. . . Literally. On ocassion a puppeteer will trip or miss a step and all of a sudden the entire fish puppet scene turns into on big jumble of neon colored foam as the other puppeteers run into and over each other.

There is a scene change where (for years) a costume dresser would go out on stage and take Ariel's shells. . . except the time when Ariel's hair got tangle up in the string tie. The dresser tried deperately to untangle it, but as the curtian was about to go back up, she shoved the shell bra into the back of Ariel's dress and ran off stage. The whole last scene Ariel had to stand facing the audience to hide the shells. The whole cast was cracking up.

When you leave the Mermaid show (or at least it used to be this way), the leavee would get kidnapped, tapped to a chair and place under the rain curtian on stage. At other stages, the going away send off usually included an entire container of baby power and getting thrown in the shower. Leaving Fantasmic! used to meant getting thrown in the moat, until we realized what all was in that water. Epic (Indiana Jones). . . you never really truly leave that show so it doesn't count. People who get 'fired' come back six months later and get rehired all the time. An now with Light Motors Action at the other end of the park, when you get too beak up to play at Indy, you can transfer down there and drive cars for awhile. (fyi, I did not say that, one of the Indy's told me that. I'm just repeating it.)

The Boys of Epic loved to play. . . all the time. And heaven forbid a thunderstorm prevent them from doing a show. I've seen indoor base ball games using a duct taped towel for a ball, full contact ping pong matches (I'll explain in a future blog), hangers flying through the air and an occasional frisbee. However, the last time I saw a frisbee in there a custodial cast member got hit by it and reported it to her management. The Epic boys got in deep trouble over that.

I have to admit, when (back in the early 80's) when I first heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I thought it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard of. Little did I know that a few short years later that I'd be dressing Leo, Micheal, Rapheal and Donatello. The cotume for the turtles included a small piece of fabric we called the 'happy strap'. It held the front and back together. . . think about it for Just a moment and you'll figure out where the term came from. When the turtles were feeling a bit onry, they could easily embarras a dresser by making certian noises and jestures. And we did have one or two dresser who refused to go back to that stage or just flat out quit.

Did I mention that the rules of personal space and the human body are forever skewed once you work in costuming? In normal society, the average personal space it about three to five feet. In the world of a dresser, it's inches, or as in the case of Lights Motors Actions stunt show, it's suck it up and get over it. . .okay that was Really bad choice of works.

At LMA there is a motorcycle rider that drives through a wall of flames. Costuming's job is to put the flame retardant on his entire body, including the nether regions. I was told that a deeply religious dresser saw that and refused to work the show again.

I often thought 'I have the wierdest job in the world'. Then I'd watch the show, or see the audience's reaction and think 'I have one awesome job'. I guess that's why i was there all of those years.

until next time,

Live Long and Prosper, no wait, There Is No Try, Only Do. . . Snakes, Why'd It Have to Be Snakes. . . . I give up, That's A Wrap.