September 4, 2019 Bev Hulme Leave a comment
‘Have you ever made Nun’s costumes?’
‘We need them for our Senior Drama Production next March…’
Well no, I hadn’t, but that’s never stopped me from giving something a go. They needed 5 for the cast, then maybe another two for staff members who would be on the stage as producer and musical director. As always with the school productions there was a very small budget but a least they were planning ahead so we had a good 2 months to get everything ready. Oh, hang on, they also need two choirboys, 3 novices and one of those would need a ‘Flying Nun’s’ headdress….
Thank goodness for google!!
I couldn’t find patterns but luckily I found the official Nunsense website. They were selling costumes… but hang on… not enough budget…. at least I was able to look closely at the photos of the individual items. Then I found a video featuring the Nunsense creator, Dan Goggin, dressing a female lead in the costume, item by item, which gave me a clear view of how to make each piece.
There are special descriptions for all the items that make up a Nun’s habit – so, to be precise, I created a wimple (the headdress), the guimpe (collar), the habit was a basic long-sleeve black dress with a strip of fabric attached to the front which looked like a scapular (which is usually a long tabard, front and back, but we didn’t have enough material for that!) and the veil.
I made all seven of them and the Mother Superior costume had to fit over a fat suit. I was pretty lucky because the habit is a fairly loose baggy item so it didn’t need much fitting ….. honesty moment…some of the hems were a bit short but …. at least no-one was going to trip over on stage!
The wimples were basically two rectangles attached to the piece which framed the face. This was difficult to fit on each performer and they had to be very careful with their make-up! In order to keep them, and the veil which was velcro’d to the top, firmly in place, they were tied onto the back of the head in three places. It looks quite a contraption…but it worked..
The choir boys were created from memory and another google search… Hang on, memory? No you didn’t! Well yes, once or twice I did don a cassock and surplice in another life, many years ago – just to help out, you know?! I was rather happy with how they turned out actually!
The novices were going to wear their own white school shirts..phew.. so all I had to make were some simple grey skirts and the veil. The skirts were easy, just a circle-ish skirt, ish because, remember, I had to keep to the material budget, but the veils were more of a challenge. The shape is simple but they were difficult to hold on. The nun’s veils were securely velcro’d (is that a word?) to the wimple but these could only be fixed at the back of the neck and kept slipping off… we ended up having to manage with hairgrips – I still haven’t thought of a better option!
I nearly forgot- the flying nun! It was a very quick scene but the inspiration was from the tv show in the late 60’s starring a very young Sally Field. I have to confess I do have a vague memory of it! (Yep, that old!) I had some wire coat-hangers and white cotton fabric and some imagination… it worked and it got a laugh…but that was more down to the lovely student that played the part than my wobbly headpiece!
We only had one issue with the costumes – the performers were struggling to hear their music and cues underneath the wimple and veil. Quickly solved by cutting a slit in each wimple over the ear – if I had more time I would have made them with a finer patch of fabric, maybe muslin or something similar over each ear but we didn’t realise the problem until the dress rehearsal the day before the performance so we went for the rough and ready solution.
The staff and students that took part were so talented and a joy to work with. They were so appreciative of the work that went into turning them into their characters.. you can’t ask for more than that… and it really kick-started my interest in, and love for, making things again..
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Posted in: Nunsense 2017, School CostumesFiled under: costume, costumedesigner, Nunsense, theatrecostume
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