Tale #18: Take Back Your Skirt

Costumes in community theater can range from a colorful t-shirt to a beautiful ball gown; from a pair of black cotton leggings to an authentic military uniform. It is all dependent on the show, cast size, the availability of a costume, what the theater already has in inventory, and what the budget is for your show.

VACT has a set of red Santa skirts that were first created for a production of White Christmas in 2010. They are red felt skirts lined with white trim and have velcro to close the skirt around your waist. They worked perfectly for that show. However, it is a felt skirt with velcro. It has a shelf life.

These skirts were featured again in our 2014 production of White Christmas. Once again, they looked beautiful. However, the felt was starting to fray and the velcro was wearing out.

In 2015 we did a holiday musical review entitled “A Very Merry Hometown Christmas”. It was a variety show filled with your favorite Christmas music (aka anything Christmas-related that ASCAP permitted us to use for free).

I cannot for the life of me remember what the number was, but I remember I had to wear one of those felt Christmas skirts. These skirts were on their third show and had been living in storage containers for multiple years. Frankly, they had already run their course. Alas, they were cute and the costume team felt they could revive them.

The velcro on my skirt constantly needed to be fixed. I had to give it the costume team numerous times during rehearsals and performances.

One fateful performance, I went out on stage for the number after a costume person had assured me it would hold up. I started the number and was dancing away when I felt something weird on my shins.

I quickly realized that the velcro on my skirt was detached and my skirt was sitting around my ankles.

Thank god I was wearing black dance shorts under my skirt.

I straight up stopped dancing, picked my skirt up from my ankles, and stood on stage in front of a full audience re-velcroing my skirt before I resumed dancing. There is no graceful way to recover from your skirt hanging around your ankles. You just have to own it, pull your skirt back up, and go on.

Believe it or not, these skirts actually made another appearance in our 2016 production of It’s A Wonderful Life. Luckily, they had been heavily reinforced and no-one’s skirt fell off on stage.

The red felt skirts in action.