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ADistantMoonAgo

Godspell costuming

I was just wondering what everyone's costumes looked like in your version of godspell

The costumer of our production is one of my best friends and also plays Joanne, so we've discussed it a lot. The basis of her costuming decisions is the idea that Godspell is not in any set time, so she is making/buying costumes that come from all different periods of time (besides Judas and Jesus), so they seem really individual on stage. She based it off of all of our personalities and our characters combined. The costumes are pretty much supposed to be modern interpretations of other time periods.

So far these are the general ideas

Jesus- we're doing the WWID? shirt with jeans and an open shirt over it

John the Baptist/Judas- When the character is John the Baptist, he will wear this army jacket we got at a vintage store- because the character is described as a revolutionary. At the same time, we don't want to make it seem like an evil thing, so the jacket is decorated with patches and has a more 60s feel to it than anything. The general idea is that he is supposed to be bringing an "army" of followers together to hear Jesus's teachings. When he is Judas, he changes into a leather jacket or vest (we're not positive yet) and becomes a more dark character.

Gilmer- the costumer sees gilmer as sort of the baby of the group, but still very goofy and loud. She's going to look like she's from the 80s, with Madonna trend influences and Rainbow Brite colors Razz We got an 80s vintage dress that has the words "rock, paper, and scissors" on it. it's yellow, blue and gray. I'm also wearing a madonna bow, red tights, and crazy jewelry. And I was told to take a pair of keds and sew "random 80s looking buttons" to them lol

Sonia- she knows that she's going to make Sonia a modern 1920s flapper. This one is still a work in progress.

Herb- (We don't have a Jeffrey)He's going to be a modern 1920s/1930s newsboy. He'll have black pants with red suspenders and a red hat, but with band pins decorating the suspenders.

robin- we're making our robin a grungy 90s girl, but i'm not sure what the costume for this is, it's done though.

Peggy- (our peggy is singing bless the lord and by my side) the girl who is playing peggy defines earth mother, so the costumer stayed with a hippie sort of theme, but didn't want it to be a really stereotypical hippie (ya know, long skirts, etc.). She decorated a pair of jeans with peace signs and suns and is making her an orangey-red shirt that is frayed to look almost native american.

Joanne- the costumer plays Joanne and has decided to make her sort of flashy and 70sesque, because she is the "first one to volunteer" This one is also a work in progress

Lamar- he will either be a sweet 50s guy or a 90s/modern guy. still have to figure it out.


I hope this was semi-interesting
Tell me about your costumes, folks Smile
Robinflamingo

A lot of my costumes are over in this thread: http://www.musicals.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=53636&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=132

But here are a few more:








The first one is "street clothes" - each of our disciples was called out of the audience wearing clothes that befit their "occupation" before they were called to be a disciple (ie. student, dancer, businessman, doctor) - then the rest of the costumes were created by the cast and approved by me about halfway through the rehearsals. One day, I unlocked the costume room door and said "Go find your character's costume." And they did. There were some adjustments, but generally at that point, they knew who they were and what they wanted to look like. It was a really fun day, actually, as they found "themselves."

You might notice my Jesus is traditional, and my JB/J is much like you said yours was going to be...tie dye shirt underneath, but army jacket with pins and marching band cords attached Smile
what_the_heck013

I've never done Godspell so I don't have an answer, but I like your costumer's concept, ADistantMoonAgo. I've always been a fan of the costumes from the film.
DramaRobin2002

Robinflamingo wrote:
One day, I unlocked the costume room door and said "Go find your character's costume." And they did. There were some adjustments, but generally at that point, they knew who they were and what they wanted to look like. It was a really fun day, actually, as they found "themselves."


It was the same with our production. One day our costumer (actually the head of our theater group) brought bins and bins of costumer pieces in that she had collected over the years and we were allowed to go through and pick things. Our director also looked through and suggested things to us as well as letting us bring some things in from home if we couldn't find something we liked.







We also had the traditional superman shirt for Jesus.
BroadwayBeast

I cant beleive you didnt have a Jeffrey, I played that part and he is like one of the funnest parts in the show. Thats dissapointing. Anyway, there are a few pics on my signature, but our costumes were really great. Except our director didnt want Jesus to wear a superman shirt. Moving on, our costumes all had to be very different butalso very alike at the same time. I (playing Jeffrey) wore, Strped button down shirt, rainbow suspenders, red and white plaid pants, green and yellow reebok shows, and about a dowzen ties and a pink Bow tie. It was an amazing show, so yeah have fun.
SuperKabob

I was in a junior production, so there really were no roles. For all of the costumes, we had a mix between bad 80's clothes (kinda redundant) and dance costumes

For example, i had pastel orange flowy pants, a green tanktop, a bright wrap ruffly turquiose skirt, a "stars 'n' stripes" cropped top with fringe, (over the tanktop) and to top it all of, a lemon yellow blazer with HUGE shoulder pads. I did have one of the more eclectic outfits.

For the beginning of the show, our director had us bring in sweats to put over the stuff we already had on. (it was hard for the girl with a tutu!)We all looked like we had gained at least 20 pounds.
MHoward

Quote:
I was just wondering what everyone's costumes looked like in your version of godspell

The costumer of our production is one of my best friends and also plays Joanne, so we've discussed it a lot. The basis of her costuming decisions is the idea that Godspell is not in any set time, so she is making/buying costumes that come from all different periods of time (besides Judas and Jesus), so they seem really individual on stage. She based it off of all of our personalities and our characters combined. The costumes are pretty much supposed to be modern interpretations of other time periods.

So far these are the general ideas

Jesus- we're doing the WWID? shirt with jeans and an open shirt over it


Love the idea.. very funny! AWESOME!

Quote:
John the Baptist/Judas- When the character is John the Baptist, he will wear this army jacket we got at a vintage store- because the character is described as a revolutionary. At the same time, we don't want to make it seem like an evil thing, so the jacket is decorated with patches and has a more 60s feel to it than anything. The general idea is that he is supposed to be bringing an "army" of followers together to hear Jesus's teachings. When he is Judas, he changes into a leather jacket or vest (we're not positive yet) and becomes a more dark character.


Sounds great… I would think about Judas more as a misunderstood disciple who is really trying to do the right thing. I like the leather jacket thing… I always looked at Judas as needing to have manly good looks, charismatic.

As for the rest of the cast.. I think they sound pretty kool. In my productions of Godspell, we had cast members wear layers of colorful clothes which they shed throuout the show revealing all shades of white.
The shedding away of worldly needs into a state of innocence was very effective for our productions.

Quote:
Gilmer- the costumer sees gilmer as sort of the baby of the group, but still very goofy and loud. She's going to look like she's from the 80s, with Madonna trend influences and Rainbow Brite colors We got an 80s vintage dress that has the words "rock, paper, and scissors" on it. it's yellow, blue and gray. I'm also wearing a madonna bow, red tights, and crazy jewelry. And I was told to take a pair of keds and sew "random 80s looking buttons" to them lol

Sonia- she knows that she's going to make Sonia a modern 1920s flapper. This one is still a work in progress.


Remember, Sonia is actually playing a parody, she is not really a slut.

Quote:
Herb- (We don't have a Jeffrey)He's going to be a modern 1920s/1930s newsboy. He'll have black pants with red suspenders and a red hat, but with band pins decorating the suspenders.

robin- we're making our robin a grungy 90s girl, but i'm not sure what the costume for this is, it's done though.

Peggy- (our peggy is singing bless the lord and by my side) the girl who is playing peggy defines earth mother, so the costumer stayed with a hippie sort of theme, but didn't want it to be a really stereotypical hippie (ya know, long skirts, etc.). She decorated a pair of jeans with peace signs and suns and is making her an orangey-red shirt that is frayed to look almost native american.

Joanne- the costumer plays Joanne and has decided to make her sort of flashy and 70sesque, because she is the "first one to volunteer" This one is also a work in progress

Lamar- he will either be a sweet 50s guy or a 90s/modern guy. still have to figure it out.
lilmissbroadway

for ours(jr) were kids in a park and we're all different stereotypes like, nerdy,punk,goth,cheerleader,hip hop(me),rich girl,poor girl,country girl,brainiac,tough guy, and Jesus is all in white
bwayobsessed

In our school's production, we had a goth/punk feel. Everyone had this awesome dramatic face paint. The first act everyone was in black, white, and gray(except for Jesus, who wore all white) and everyone got one piece of colored clothing for the second act. For example, somebody's glove became pink or someone's hat changed to yellow. Judas/John the Baptist had a leather jacket, he looked really tough. I wish I had a picture...
Dram_babe57

OUr director didnt want anything to be different than anyone elses except for jesus and judas..
we are all wearing different color coveralls in the begining scene.. and then we change into complete white outfits.. kinda symbolizing the innocense type thing.. to show we are all different however, we are wearing different color bandanas..
Baker

lilmissbroadway wrote:
for ours(jr) were kids in a park and we're all different stereotypes like, nerdy,punk,goth,cheerleader,hip hop(me),rich girl,poor girl,country girl,brainiac,tough guy, and Jesus is all in white


That sounds really cool, actually.

We each had assigned a certain thing to be drawn on our faces for the make up, so we wouldn't waste time trying to think of what to draw. We costumed ourselves:

Jesus - Long-sleeved Superman shirt and rainbow suspenders. The coolest part were his jeans, which all of the cast signed and wrote things on with different-colored Sharpies. Makeup was the heart on his forehead.

Judas (me) - I wore jeans and then took a whole bunch of my dad's neckties and tied one to each belt loop, which was cool. Then I wore a black T-shirt with the yellow Batman logo on it and then an open button-up blue shirt over top. The blue was a symbol of following Jesus (because Jesus' shirt was blue too). When I left to betray him, I threw off the blue shirt onstage and left, then when I returned I had on a red shirt instead. It was fun symbolism. And my makeup was a lightning bolt.

Robin - she did herself all in blue and green. Blue and green striped shirt, blue pants, green shoes. And she put her hair in a side ponytail. Her makeup was a smiley face.

Sonia - denim type dress, but it was stretchy. Then she had a red and purple boa, and the little feather headdress thing the original Sonia wore. She also had like buttons and keychains attached all over her dress. She had a big dot on each cheek for her makeup.

Jeffrey - jeans, green T-shirt, white shirt over, and then tied handkercheifs all over (around his knees and elbows, around his neck, etc.) He had these half circles on his cheeks for his makeup.

Joanne - green pants and purple hoodie with chiffon scarfs looped through her belt loops. Her makeup was a sun.

Lana (instead of Lamar) - blue pants, white shirt, and this really cool vest that was all sorts of colors. And a red newsboy's cap. She had a star for her makeup.

Herb - newspaper print pants, green T-shirt, and orange vest, with a three-leaf clover for his makeup.

Gilmer - all in pink. Pinks pants, pink T-shirt, pink overshirt, pink belt, pink headband, pink socks... Her makeup was a peace sign.

Peggy - jean skirt, suspenders, and then she changed her shirt for every show, but it was always some sort of blue. And I think she had striped legwarmers too. Her makeup was a swirl.
Jman383

I'm student-directing Godspell in a few weeks and all of my characters are bound to one color based on their personalities. They are:

Jesus: White (pure)
Judas: Black & Grey (dark and rebellious)
Robin: Purple (spiritual and devout)
Gilmer: Yellow (electric and fun)
Joanne: Pink (exciting and girly)
Lamar: Green (earthy)
Herb: Brown/Tan (comical and simple)
Sonia: Red (seductive and lusty)
Peggy: Sky Blue (innocent and shy)
Jeffrey: Orange (young and vibrant)
Martha: Royal Blue (intelligent)

Now, the character of Martha WAS added to the show, because I have THE perfect girl singing "Beautiful City". However she is NOT singing the upbeat, fun, Beautiful City that Jesus and the company normally singing, hers is a dramatic and powerful ballad (that I'm taking from the Jr. Version). It's quite good.

But yes, my entire theme is color oriented, and actually, since all of the colors make up white (Jesus) instead of doing clown make-up to indicate each follower's allegiance, I'm having him give each one of the followers a part of his costume at the beginning, which is full of color. On him are the following:

A PINK Headband (Joanne)
A RED Boa (Sonia)
A BROWN Scarf (Herb)
An ORANGE Bandanna (Jeffrey)
A YELLOW flower (Gilmer)
A pair of GREEN sandles (Lamar)
A pair of SKY BLUE glasses (Peggy)
A ROYAL BLUE wristband (Martha)
A PURPLE ring (Robin)
A pair of BLACK fingerless gloves (Judas)

As far as actual costumes, I'm letting the cast go pretty crazy. The only things set in stone are:

Jesus: T-Shirt, Suspenders, Pants and spray painted dress shoes (All White)

Judas: Jolly Roger (skull and crossbones) T-shirt, Camo Pants, a Hoodie and Combat Boots (all Black)

Lamar: T-shirt, Overalls and Sandles (All Green)

Sonia: A red, low cut "slutty" dress, red boa, black fishnets for hands and legs, and
red pumps.

Joanne: A large, cut, crew-neck sweater (like in Flashdance), tight spandex for her legs, leg warmers, a headband and tennis shoes (All Hot Pink)

Beyond those however, everything is pretty up in the air, but I DO have detailed sketches of what I planned on everyone wearing lol. I'll upload if anyone wants though!
Baker

Jman383 wrote:
I'm student-directing Godspell in a few weeks and all of my characters are bound to one color based on their personalities.


I've heard of this idea before too, and I really like it. I think I would do the colors a little differently though.

Jman383 wrote:
Sonia: A red, low cut "slutty" dress, red boa, black fishnets for hands and legs, and
red pumps.


To echo MHoward: "Remember, Sonia is actually playing a parody, she is not really a slut."
Jman383

That's up for interpretation. Throughout the entire show Sonia is flirting with the boys, and has multiple inuendos about sleeping with them and having sex. True, they are parodies, but seeing as they're more than 1 for the same character, I think it means something. Furthermore, the entire style of Turn Back was adapted by Schwartz based on the personality of the original, Sonia Manzano, who was an urban, "promiscuous", yet playful, soul.

P.S. This is the note on Sonia taken from Schwartz's original notes:

"Sonia- Sassy and slightly cynical, the most urban of the group. Also the "sexy" one, but her sexiness contains a large element of put-on, in the manner of Mae West or Madonna(who in fact once played this role)."

Now, while I realize it says a large part of it contains an element of "put-on", she can still wear a slighlty revealing dress. I don't think there's any harm there. I don't know, just my thoughts. Similarly, really ask yourself: Do you consider Madonna to be a slut? Although my opinion doesn't matter for you, seeing Madonna's choice of wardrobe from the 80's especially her choice of chestwear... I'll just leave it at that.....

Just for giggles though, how would you have arranged the colors?
bwayobsessed

I love the color idea, and would love to see those sketches!
Jman383

Hey there! Okay, so NO ONE laugh (a lot) haha, but I am NO artist! Actually, I'm the only one in my family who CANNOT draw (my dad designs clothes (leather coats, briefcases, belts, bags, wallets etc), my sister is a graphic design major, and my other sister was almost an art major in college), but please totally disregard the facts that some of the body parts may be uneven lol, and that they are NOT colored in. But nonetheless, here are the initial sketches I made months ago. I'll describe everyone so you know exactly what they're wearing.

GUYS: http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/2945/godspellcostumesguysfy1.jpg

Jesus: Same as mentioned before.

Judas: Same as mentioned before.

Jeffrey: While going to be totally revised, he's wearing an incorrectly buttoned shirt, bermuda shorts, and two soccer socks, each at a different height to represent how young and unorganized he is (ALL orange). Also, think 80's/early 90's for period inspiration.

Lamar: As before. He's a farmer in my show... and a southern gentlemen... a slow, southern gentlemen haha.

Herb: Baseball t-shirt, coordiroys (sp?!), scarf (ALL Brown). Basically, inspired by the 70's (think That's 70's Show)

GIRLS: http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/5794/godspellcostumesgirlshc2.jpg

Robin: DEFINITELY revising, and making WAY more tomboy... but, wearing a shawl, carpris and flats (ALL purple).

Sonia: As mentioned before. Derived from 70's, Rocky Horror style... but female haha.

Gilmer: Turtle neck, plaid skirt, high socks, sash and shoes. (ALL Yellow). The inspiration is the 60's/70's group Manhattan Transfer... check out this vid to see what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51clGgFkMA4

Joanne: As mentioned before.

Peggy: Small dress over long sleeve t-shirt, and bell bottoms (ALL sky blue). Think classic 70's.

Martha: Baggier long sleeve t-shirt, gold pendant w/sapphire, leggings, and high boots (ALL royal/navy blue). Think maude style.

Now as I said in an earlier post, these are NOT final. Most of my cast are choosing their own stuff, these are just original concepts I got excited about. Hope everyone has some good laughs! haha.
Baker

Jman383 wrote:
"Sonia- Sassy and slightly cynical, the most urban of the group. Also the "sexy" one, but her sexiness contains a large element of put-on, in the manner of Mae West or Madonna(who in fact once played this role)."

Just for giggles though, how would you have arranged the colors?


Hmmm, true, but I think there's a line that can't be crossed with Sonia or the show can start to become blasphemous, especially with "Turn Back, O Man."

As for colors:

Jesus - white
Robin - royal blue
Judas - black
Sonia - red
Herb - yellow
Gilmer - green
Lamar - sky blue
Peggy - pink
Jeffrey - orange
Joanne - purple

I like your choices a lot, actually. I'm not trying to disagree with them at all. But I think that if a director decides to do the color idea, they really have to look at the actors playing the characters, because different actors (and different directors, for that matter) will choose to bring out different aspects in the characters. So while your colors match your cast, the ideas that I have would probably coorrespond better with the cast that I was part of. I don't know, does that make sense at all?
Jman383

Totally, and that's what's so great about the show... it's so different for every cast! And I love that.

As for Sonia, I see exactly what you mean. However I think the "striptease" with the boa concept is all just a manner of fun to get the audience back in gear for act 2. But I know what you mean... it's just, my Sonia looks very much like a young version of the original, and sings a LOT like Capathia on the 2000 recording, and her sense of humor is very similar to Capath as well, so why not just go for it, ya know? Here's what she looks like btw:

http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/6663/soniaqw0.jpg

But yes, I get exactly what you mean. What might be right for your cast, might not be for yours. And that's the way it's suppose to be!
Beagle On Stage

Jman383 wrote:
Furthermore, the entire style of Turn Back was adapted by Schwartz based on the personality of the original, Sonia Manzano, who was an urban, "promiscuous", yet playful, soul.


Actually, it's based on the great Mae West, who was a walking parody of sexy.
Jman383

Yes and no. We both agree actually, but had Sonia not had a Mae West type personality, the song might not have ended up the way it did. This is an excerpt from Schwartz's official site:

"One of the original cast members in GODSPELL, Sonia Manzano, who has since gone on to be one of the cast members, writers and producers of "Sesame Street", had a kind of Mae Westian naughty/naive quality to her character, so I thought it would be fun for her to do a Mae West style number. "
Monsieur D'Arque

I saw one once that took place in an abandoned theater, allowing cast members to make costume changes by stepping into the "costume closet" or "dressing room." It allowed for a few cute things, such as in All For The Best, Jesus put on a ragged coat to sing his part, and then Judas stepped out of the dressing room in an elaborate zoot suit with a cigar. During the duet section, Jesus shined Judas's shoes with the soft-shoe rhythm for that part of the song, creating an audible percussion part. It was funny.
TwiceUponaTime

Sexy does not = sleazy.

Just sayin'.
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