Tale #4: A Parade of Imposters

The Verona Hometown Days parade will always hold a special place in my heart. It is a whimsical celebration that perfectly exemplifies a true midwestern small town.

The Hometown Days parade is part of the yearly Hometown Days festival. Imagine your traditional outdoor shindig complete with rides, a beer tent, a 5k, fireworks, and live music all weekend long. The parade is held on the Sunday of Hometown Days weekend and is one of the biggest advertising opportunities for our summer shows.

Various community groups each create a float that rides in the parade. From the Kehl School of Dance to Infinity Marshall arts, there are always about 30 floats in the parade.  

My final parade before going to college was for The Wizard of Oz in 2011. We had some very talented adults in our production. However, there are many times when the very talented adults want absolutely nothing to do with parade day.

Now I can understand the lack of desire to ride on a giant flatbed gooseneck trailer in full costume in 80 degree weather for multiple hours. However, we suffer through that sweat and exhaustion so the families can see the iconic characters they love and then buy tickets to see them again in the show. Gotta have that Emerald City Green.

First the Wicked Witch had a conflict with the parade. Then the Lion. Then Glinda. Mama Terry (director) and Founder Dee (producer) were adamant that those characters needed to be on the float to create the full Wizard of Oz experience. Ding Dong! An Idea.

Faster than I could say “there’s no place like home”, they had both turned to me. Then a Munchkin’s mom. Then a Jitterbug dancer’s boyfriend.

So, there we were on the giant flatbed gooseneck trailer. I was stuck in a large bubblegum dress and a very tall hat. I demanded to keep my black bug-eye sunglasses on because the sun was unbearably bright that day and I was not getting crows feet over this. I was Glinda the fashionable good witch of the north. The mother of one of our little Munchkins was an amazingly good sport to don a black dress and green face paint to play the Wicked Witch. For the Lion, the only guy we could find tall enough to fit the costume was the boyfriend of one of our Jitterbug dancers who had literally only come to drop his girlfriend off for the parade.

Now we were lucky enough to have the real Dorothys (the part had been double-cast) and the real Scarecrow present for the parade. We were supposed to also have the real Tinman, but at five minutes to go-time he still hadn’t arrived.

As our call time crept closer and closer, we knew the Tinman was not going to make it in time to board the float at the theater. Therefore, my mom sent us off to follow the Yellow Brick Road to the holding area with me (the seventeen-year-old in the cupcake dress) in charge.

The amount of kids that participate in the parade each year always outnumber the amount of adults that participate. In 2011, we had a particularly rowdy group of Munchkins. We were parked next to a large hill as we waited for the parade to start. One of the flying monkeys made a break for it and started running up the hill. I hopped off and proceeded to go get him and tell him to get his butt back on the trailer.

All of a sudden someone called my name with a question. As I turned to see who, my foot caught in my dress and I began to tumble. As I rolled down the hill in the giant Glinda dress, I thought, “well this is just great”. I also thought, “I better not get in trouble for any grass stains on this costume”.

The parade was about to start. We were all positioned on the giant flatbed gooseneck trailer as the soundtrack played and our smiles beamed. We were finally off to see the Wizard (who luckily was already set on the parade float).

We started to hear a large amount of cheering. We looked off into the distance to see my mom escorting the Tinman in full costume and makeup through the crowd to catch the float. He looked happy as could be waving at the cheering fans, many of whom were taking pictures. My mom on the other hand, looked like someone was about to die.

We finally got the Tinman on the float and successfully completed the parade. The crowds were thrilled to see the iconic characters come alive.

Now, I was originally supposed to walk the parade in my official cast t-shirt and help hand out candy. Having switched from wearing my show t-shirt to a costume with a heart-shaped cut out in the back meant the skin on my back was exposed to the sun for the entirety of the parade and I had only put sunscreen on my face. In all of the imposter craziness, the implication of that hadn’t registered in my brain.  

We finished the parade, changed out of our costumes and headed home. That night, I developed the biggest, most painful, heart-shaped sunburn on my back from wearing that dress all afternoon in the sun. The Ruby-Slipper red sunburn did not start to fade until after our first weekend of performances.

“A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.” – The Wizard of Oz.

The production team really loved the giant red heart on my back during performances.