Featuring actors Natalie Wikstrom and Jeffrey Polak

Production photos by Anne Kenny

Additional photos of this costume design can be found in my portfolio here

The Prom is a theatre-person’s musical full of obscure Broadway references and actor in-jokes, many of them made by or at the expense of the character Dee Dee Allen, a Patti-Lupone-esque diva at the heart of the group of Broadway actors trying to save a small Indiana town from bigotry. One of these moments of satire comes in the form of a gag quick change ahead of Dee Dee’s 11-o-clock number “The Lady’s Improving.” After a fight with the school’s principal, Dee Dee storms off stage and is meant to immediately re-enter in a different costume. Many productions will accomplish this with an underdressed jumpsuit and jacket with the jacket being the only garment removed.

I felt that, if we were going to include this bit in our production, it needed to look impressive and be more of a significant change than some of the reference productions I was seeing. I wanted her to have a complete silhouette change, so we opted for a change from jacket and pants into a dress. With a team of 3 dressers, we were able to get the change down to 10 seconds.