Dig It! 2018

Hi everyone!

We are so excited to do this awesome musical at Southland for the second time! Our last performance of Dig It! was six years ago. You may notice many of the posts in this blog are dated back in 2012, and that is why.

The main purpose of this blog is to communicate the costume requirements for the many different characters. This musical has a LOT of different characters, which makes it super fun for the kids and a great show to watch as well. We need a lot of help from you, our parents, with the costumes. You will not have to do any elaborate sewing, we have tried to keep things as simple as possible.

To figure out what your specific child needs for his/her costume - see the labels to the right and find their character. Click on it to see all of the posts related to that character's costume and instructions. And keep in mind that we would really appreciate donations of costumes after the show since we cycle through these fun school musicals and hope to do another in six more years.

PLEASE HAVE COSTUMES READY TO BE CHECKED OFF BY JANUARY 15TH

We do have a few costumes that we need extra help with. PLEASE consider helping if you can - the needs we have right now are help cutting skeleton bones (and possibly stitching over the top to keep them from peeling off) and we will need help designing a simple flowy "dress" for our Greek Choristers. Last time it was VERY simple - no sleeves - just a flowy material the girls wore over white shirts and leggings with a belt.

If you have leftover white and/or black face paint we would love to use it for our skeletons. We will need a lot of it to paint all 10 skeletons for three performances.

You may e-mail me at jen.t.preece@gmail.com with any questions or if you find anything I need to update or edit on this blog.

Thanks so much - we are enjoying working with your children and hope this will be a wonderful and memorable experience for them! We have musical "kids" who are now seniors in high school and come to us remembering the songs and how much fun they had doing this show. We think you will be amazed at what a fun and fabulous musical this is! Please help support us to make it even more amazing!! We would love as much help as we can get - especially with our costumes.

Details - Makeup, etc.

Once you have your costume ready and checked off, here are some more details to consider as the performance gets closer...

Skeletons - Girls, please have your hair pulled back in a low pony tail and out of your face. Wear black shoes and come ready to have your face painted. (o: (We will not do the face paint for dress rehearsals, except one or two for practice.) We will need our skeletons to come a little earlier than everyone else to the performances so we can have plenty of time to get their makeup done. PLEASE let me know if you can help apply makeup on our skeletons for the performances! (jen.t.preece@gmail.com)

Mesopotamian Farmers and Two Rivers scene - See the note about "stage" makeup at the bottom. Wear neutral colored sandals or slip on leather-looking shoes. Try to avoid running shoes, bright colors, or anything with laces.

Tomb Builders - Dirt smudges would be great, not too over the top. Wear neutral or brown colored sandals or shoes. Old, dirty, worn out is good - but try to avoid anything with shoelaces.

Peasants - Brown shoes or neutral-colored sandals. You can do "dirt" on your faces for makeup if you like. Don't go too crazy, just enough to look pathetic. (o: You may also have your hair a little messy for the same reason.

Mummies - As with the skeletons, please pull your hair back in a low pony tail and out of your face as mummies are usually pretty bald. (o: Wear shoes that are as close to the color of your costumes as you can. (White shoes are fine.) If you would like, you may wear a little makeup like gray circles under your eyes, and maybe some wrinkles around your eyes and mouth. You could also make your face look a little pale. Keep the look fairly subtle and NO blood. If you plan to do a little makeup for the performances, it would be nice if you could wear it for one of the dress rehearsals or at our Wednesday afternoon performance so we can have you make changes if necessary.

Greek Choristers - If you would like, you girls could wear a little more bright makeup since we are going for the "pretty" look. I've talked to the girls about this, but just FYI for parents, I told them that it would look great if they had a pretty up "do" with loose curls. The look below is kind of what we are looking for. It doesn't need to be exactly like this. I may or may not have a gold headband or ribbon for them at our dress rehearsal on Monday. I'm having a hard time finding something and may just not worry about it. Have your daughter wear a white short-sleeved shirt and leggings under their dress as it is fairly see-through material. And don't forget sandals.

Toga Wearers - Wear neutral colored sandals and if you want you can do some "stage" makeup as mentioned below. No special instructions for your hair. Just remember you'll be putting on a toga and a ponytail or other up "do" may get messed up.

As for everyone else, we've talked to the kids a little bit about wearing "stage" makeup. If you would like to put on a little bit of blush and mascara or eyeliner and a little lip gloss or chapstick to make your child's face stand out on stage a little bit that would be great. Most of the boys cringed, understandably at this, so we aren't going to be strict about it by any means. Please keep it subtle - we don't want the girls getting all painted up like they do for dance recitals with bright lipstick, etc.

If your child has a more specific role that I didn't mention, you may e-mail me at jen.t.preece@gmail.com. Basically, just try to keep the details in "tune" with the rest of your child's costume and or scene they will be in. (They know what their scene is.) We will let you know if there are any minor changes that we need after our first dress rehearsal.

Props for the Musical

There are a few cast members who will be using props in the musical. Our Mesopotamian farmers will all have a small prop. Last week we let the student's pick what they would like to bring to pantomime in the background during their song. They chose small items like: a basket, a washboard, a piece of cloth to pretend to wash, a stick to pretend to beat a rug, a small shovel (not bright colors), a leather pouch that holds seeds (not really, but they will be reaching in to grab invisible seeds pretending to plant them).

We also have some cast members in charge of bringing items like a wheel, money holder, a crook, sandwich, a stone with hieroglyphics, etc. We will try to communicate these specific needs to the parents of the characters using them.

We would like to have the props checked off along with the costumes by January 15th.

Remus, Romulus, Romans and Togas

Here is a picture with Remus and Romulus, our two Roman brothers who had a fight to the death over who should choose where Rome should be built. As legend tells it, anyway.

We probably don't need to have our Roman brothers in such skimpy "mini skirts", but the sandals and a large loose fitting shirt might do the trick. Here are a couple more pictures for inspiration. If our Remus and Romulus do wear the shorter skirt like the ones below, please have them wear shorts underneath. (o:

I have seen a few tutorials on how to make the Roman-looking sandals on Google.

Our Roman #1 and Roman #2  and Toga wearers can be dressed in costumes similar to the costumes below...

For the "underclothing", a very large, white/light colored solid shirt , something simply sewn like the underclothes above or one mom had a GREAT idea to get a king sized pillowcase and cut a slit for the head and arm holes. Whatever you choose to make the underclothing have your child wear light colored shorts underneath and a light T-shirt depending on how good of coverage the over sized T-shirt or pillowcase has.

You will also want to find something to use for a belt that doesn't look like a modern day belt. Golden rope would look great or something similar. Since the kids will not wear the togas until later, they will need a "belt" to hold the baggy "underclothing" together.

The toga part will be the piece of the outfit that the kids will put on at the very end of the musical when we sing their song, "Toga Party". The size of the togas above is perfect. Just a square yard (or a little less depending on height) of fabric sewn at the edges to prevent fraying and then two corners of the square sewn together. (You can add embellishments at the shoulder like the kids above if you like. A gold button or something. It's up to you.) The idea is that during their song, the toga wearers will be able to reach under the risers for their toga and slip their head and one arm through. We want our togas to be jewel/dark tones. The boy's color above is fine or red, maroon, blue, dark purple, etc.

Last of all, an ivy wreath for his/her head and leather-type sandals. Just a neutral color like white, cream, brown, tan, etc. Mainly something that won't call attention like hot pink. (o: (No flip flops!)

Greek Choristers, Greek Solo and Heradotus

We have about ten Greek choristers and we are looking for a mom, grandma, dad, etc. who can help us design and sew a very simple flowy "dress" to wear over a white shirt and white leggings. We want it to look similar to the above costume.
The material of the dresses will likely be very sheer, to keep costs down. Choristers will wear a golden ribbon around their head and have a gold ribbon or rope belt. The colors of the chitons will be sea greens and blues. You will not have a lot of prep work, but we may need everyone to help pay for their portion of the materials. (Last time it was only $5) We will keep costs down to an absolute minimum and will let you know the cost after we do some shopping.

Our Greek choristers should also plan on wearing leather looking sandals without socks and a pretty updo with their hair would be a nice touch as well. (Like the picture above.) Nothing too fancy.

KHNUM and Pyramid Builders

KHNUM is the ancient God of the Nile River, he speaks to King Zoser in a dream during his scene. He should wear a large, flowing robe, an Egyptian looking round collar and maybe choose colors in blue since he is a god of the river. KHNUM should also have a cool staff, like a shepherd's crook. It could be decorated with shimmery, dangly blue ribbons that look like water. Here are some pictures for inspiration. A reserved headpiece like the one first below would be okay, but not the big, regal headpieces shown on the last two pictures. If you have any questions, you can e-mail jen.t.preece@gmail.com

Our Pyramid builders are basically the slaves of the Egyptian king. They can wear something similar to this...

It can be made from a king size pillowcase. (Just cut holes for their head and arms.) The costume needs to be white/beige/tans/browns and would look great with some dirty smudges and rough edges at the bottom. Brown leather-ish sandals (not flip flops) or slip on brown-ish shoes would look best. Please be sure that the costume is modest - not too short, and your child is wearing a white undershirt or shorts underneath if needed.

Confucius

Here are some ideas for our Confucius to wear. Either a big shiny robe with large sleeves or an oriental looking top with black pants and black shoes. Red is a very popular Chinese color and would look great on stage!

Mrs. Kartchner has a Chinese straw hat like the one below that you may borrow.