June 15, 2015

As every showgirl knows ...

the art of the quick change.  It's demonstrated quite well in this clip filmed during the 2015 Tony Awards.


She's calm, methodical, and not naked for the camera, but did you notice something else?  How many dressers does she have?  Four - one, two, three, four.

That's a lot of dressers for one performer.  In Holiday On Ice, we were lucky enough to have dressers.  The show hired local dressers in each city we played.  It was a great way for us to ask where there were good restaurants open late at night or laundromats open all night.  But as with hats, wigs, and elaborate costumes, the Holiday On Ice budget for dressers got slashed.  Back in the 80s, the count was something like four or five dressers to 28 chorus girls.  But that's changed now.  First off, there aren't usually 28 chorus girls, even in Disney On Ice.

Today, Disney has roughly eighteen in the chorus, guys and girls, but they still have to have dressers.  Some of those costumes (think Sully from Monsters Inc.) have to have someone helping you get in there.

I was impressed that a few of the Tony winners thanked their dressers as well as family and directors and producers.  Not bad.

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