Playing dress-ups: Part One

So I've been playing bass for a local musical society production. The Musical Director has picked his band basically from people he knows will work well together and be fun in the process. And fun it's been. The band is nestled in behind the stage (normally it's off to the side in the local productions) so virtually nobody from the audience can see us. We've even had comment that people think it's a CD. So we were joking about before the shows started that we should dress in pyjamas so that we'd be comfortable.

It's gone a bit nuts from there. Each night has a different theme. So the easiest most tragic choice after pyjamas was eighties night. I hit the op-shop and hacked away at a pair of jeans, a jacket and then piled a shitload of gel into my hair. The looks we got when we walked into the services club where the show is playing were priceless.

The themes are a topic of bar discussion after the show (Where else? We're musicians) and have included suggestions from the cast as well. Whatever idiot thought that we could dress up as the food groups was just pushing the friendship, though. It's been an ice-breaker between the band and the cast and I've met a lot of cool people through it.

Then we have the shot some might have been waiting for. "Formal dress" night. That's right - Vic in a dress (cue: those reading gasp at the surprise). I told the entire cast that it was a once in ten-year thing and not to get too excited. I had one lady who I'm sure was trying to convince me I could pick up a nice young lad in what I was wearing. I just smiled and nodded and thought not a chance honey.

This series of shows is the most I've ever dressed up for anything and it's been fun. Normally I'm the person who finds any excuse to turn up in jeans and hang out away from the action - to be a part of the plain furniture rather than a feature wall, but through the last two weeks of dressing up I've come out of my shell a little more as a person and it's fun.