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Voted RI Monthly's
"A RI treasure"
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Costumes are
one of the most important elements of a theatrical
production. They tell the audience a great deal about a character’s personality and background, and also give clues about “the world of the play” such as location, time period, economic conditions, etc. A good costume must not only look appropriate, but also allow an actor to move comfortably. Furthermore, because we perform many of our shows outdoors in the summertime, it is important that our costumes are not too heavy, that they “breathe” easily, and that they are washable or able to be dry cleaned. A majority of our costumes were purchased from other theatre companies. Local professional companies such as Trinity, Rep. and Theatre By The Sea (before it closed) have costume sales every few years in order to get rid of costumes they no longer need. When this happens, we are always there, looking for costumes that would fit nicely into any of our shows. Many of our costumes are also donated. Very frequently, costuming aficionados donate pieces that they have made, parents donate old Halloween costumes, and cast members donate recycled costumes from other performances. (If you have any costumes or accessories that you think we might make use of, please let us know!) Every now and then, we need a new costume for a character and are unable to use anything in our costume closet. Other times, we will rejuvenate a show by giving it brand new costumes. When this happens, we call on our costumier, Sharon Charette, to create new pieces from scratch. She will produce a wardrobe for the show with costumes that work together, relate to each other, come from the same color palette, etc. When our costumes are not being used, we store them in a giant costume closet in the rehearsal space. Kaleidoscope Theatre has been amassing costumes for the past 28 years, and as a result, you might say that this closet is “bursting at the seams!” It is filled with costumes of all sizes and styles to fit the wide variety of actors we employ and the even wider range of characters they portray. Our costume closet certainly is a dream come true for anybody who likes to play dress-up! |
