She was a ballerina, wound as tight as the corset in her costumes. He was a hockey player determined to make a friend out of someone who didn't want any. She was willing to entertain the idea. But only because he wiggled his way past her defenses to...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The following day after class, Stefano stopped by to inform us that we would be doing costume and shoe fittings during rehearsal. We were all excited for the break, and I particularly looked forward to seeing if my shoes had been done correctly. I required a different strength pointe shoe for each act, and after I cut up and sewed each pair back together for my foot shape, the shoemaker took my designs and created custom pairs to match the shape. Since this show was to run two months, it meant that he had created maybe thirty pairs for the run of the show. Pointe shoes tended to wear out quickly, and since we were onstage, we needed our shoes to look the best they could.
Since I was a principal, I headed down first to check the fit of my costumes. I was greeted by Anya, a brutal Russian woman who didn't care if she stuck you with a needle. "It build character" was how she always justified it.
"Morning Anya." I greeted the woman and nodded to her helpers. They prepared the first costume for me as Anya eyed me up and down.
"Have you gained weight?" She asked in her barely understandable accent.
"No." I replied, stepping into the dress for Act I. The first act consisted of a fabric skirt that fell to mid calf. It was periwinkle colored with a brownish corset, periwinkle cropped sleeves, and a faded, white apron. Because this was "poor, servant to her stepmother" Cinderella, the dress had an overall dirty look with a ragged hem, and the bust was torn in several spots. Though the major adjustments had already been made, this was the final fitting and there were still several kinks to work out. They mostly revolved around whether I could breathe or not.
"How about now?" Anya asked as she pinched the back of the corset tighter to my body. "Too tight?"
I twisted and bent side to side, testing the flexibility of the garment. The dress itself was nearly thirty years old, and had been used in previous shows, so the material was fairly worn in. It was just a matter of how tight I was willing to go.
"It's fine. But no tighter." I agreed to the alteration. Anya pinned it in place and adjusted the neckline so it didn't buckle when I bent over. It was better to have it too tight anyway, as it would loosen as my body heated up during the program anyway.
After stepping out of the dress, I put on the costume for the end of Act I and all of Act II, which was a romantic tutu. It was the iconic dress for the ball, and lived up to the hype. Unlike the film, it was pure white, and had a sweetheart neckline and off the shoulder flutter sleeves. Around the corseted area, there was a variety of silver stitching meant to look like vines, and there were little rhinestones glued all over to give a shine to the bodice. As I turned to look at it, I noticed for the first time that the tulle was coated in a light dusting of glitter, which gave the whole thing a dazzling effect. The bodice was fitted so tightly, and the skirt so large that though it wasn't full length, and didn't have four thousand layers of tulle, I looked like I was wearing a bonafide ballgown. I did a few pas de chat and pirouettes to see how it all moved, and, of course, it was perfect. I was happy to see we ditched the tear away servant dress for the big reveal, which had been done in previous shows. Instead, one of the girls from the corps, Jennifer, who was my height and build, was going to be my double right before the reveal. During the flurry of the four season fairies (we used Prokofiev's version) transforming Cinderella, I was going to pop out the trap door while Jennifer snuck in. It wasn't high tech, but hey, that's the theatre.
