My love for all things dance

I first witnessed ballet was when I was seven years old. My mother had taken me to see the Sadlers Wells Ballet perform Les Sylphides in London, and I was instantly mesmerized! Little did I know at the time that I would become a professional dancer, and then later transition to a costume designer.

That's not me in the photo. I just like the picture!

I never lost my love of dance and dancers. I know how hard it is to train, to become really good, and how short a ballet career will most likely be. Dancers of any age speak a common language, a language of sore muscles, intense and disciplined training, and the pure joy of artistic expression through movement.

In fact, it was my experience as a dancer that got me my first costuming job. I met one of the producers of Ann-Margret's lavish Las Vegas act, who was looking for someone to co-ordinate the 12 dancers' and 6 singers' costumes for her show. I thought I didn't know anything about costumes, only having worn them, never having made them, but the brilliant producer said I must understand what dancers need, and so gave me the job! That was what started it all.

Through Ann-Margret, I met Bob Mackie and became his assistant for the lavish Las Vegas show "Jubilee," and once again found myself costuming dancers. During rehearsals, I even took class with them from time to time if I wasn't busy downstairs in the wardrobe department. 

Leigh Taylor Young in Passions"

Many years later, while designing the show Passions, I had an unusual experience with actress Leigh Taylor Young. It turned out we had a unique connection from the past. She asked me, "Were you ever a student at the National Ballet School in Toronto?" I was surprised at the question, as that wasn't something that was in my bio. It turns out that she was also a ballet student there, a couple of years younger, and "looked up" to me, one of the "older" students at age fourteen!

From ballet to Broadway to ball gowns in Hollywood. Who would have thought!

What is my favorite color?

People often ask me what my favorite color is. That’s a tough one. It reminds me of when I asked my mother, who was the favorite of her children, my brother, my sister or me? Of course, I was hoping it would be me! But she said, “I love you all very much, but I love you each differently.” And so it is with color.

If I’m in the Caribbean looking out at the crystal clear water, I am sure my favorite color is aqua. But then in the spring, when I look at my Palo Verde tree covered in bright yellow blossoms, I think it must be yellow.

But I must say I am partial to a red dress!

There are a couple of iconic red dresses that are burned vividly and indelibly into my brain, never to fade. One was designed by the wonderful Aggie Guerard Rodgers for “The Color Purple” (for which she was nominated for an Oscar Award). It was worn by Whoopi Goldberg as “Celie,” and in the scene, she was running along the road towards her house. An ominous gray sky was behind her, which made the dark red dress become so much more intense as it swirled around her, and the whole mood felt intense and slightly dangerous.

The very first costume I designed for a major client was red and was for Ann-Margret. It was for a disco number (yes, disco..... this was a while back!) for her big nightclub act at Caesars Palace, and later the number was used on a TV special. I had already designed the outfits for the male dancers, and now I got to create a dress for the star. The first time she emerged on stage wearing my red dress was a moment I will never forget!

But if I am to define red, in a perfect world, it would be a beaded gown by Giorgio Armani on exhibit in Rome at a retrospective of the fashion designer’s work. I was in Rome on holiday and read about the Armani exhibit mounted at the ancient Roman Baths of Diocletian.

We entered the exhibit, and the first cavernous room was exceedingly dark. I wondered who would be so perverse as to not light an exhibit so one could see it! But as our eyes gradually adjusted, we could begin to see display cases of the designer’s subtly colored and understated daywear emerging from the shadows. The shapes were uncluttered, slightly androgynous, and executed in his “greige” palette. But then we entered the next room, also dark. A single spotlight mounted up high shone onto a red beaded gown, and I gasped. The way our eyes had adjusted to the dim light in the previous room must have accentuated the brilliance of this dress. To me, it was the essence of red. The ultimate red. I shall never forget it.

Las Vegas, my kind of town!

It's hard to believe that when I first stayed at Caesar's Palace (working with Ann-Margret), it looked pretty much like this! Well, in 1974, there had been one extension of the original tower, but I stayed in the round building in the center.

My connection with Las Vegas started in 1961, with a 30-minute stopover in the downtown train station on Main Street at 2 am. I was a very young dancer with the "My Fair Lady" National Company, and we were traveling from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. The 1970s, when I frequently visited for work with Ann-Margret, Raquel Welch, and Diana Ross, introduced me to the then-small town of Las Vegas in a proper fashion, and in 1980 and 1981, I spent a great deal of time here preparing the costumes for "Jubilee."

At that time, Las Vegas was still small. You could cross Las Vegas Boulevard directly; there were no overpasses. There was no 10 lane freeway running by it. The desert was a few blocks away. The airport was small. I don't even remember noticing the mountains all around...the focus was all on The Strip.

I wasn't prepared for the change when I returned in the late '80s. The airport had exploded! By this time, I was working full time as a costume designer for TV series and films in Hollywood and occasionally came up to Las Vegas to shoot on location. Las Vegas already felt somewhat like home.

And now it is home! As I was driving to the airport early this morning to drop off some friends, I admired the clear blue skies and the mountains on all four sides again. Do I pine for the old days? Absolutely not! So, there may be more cars. Still, my city is continually re-inventing itself with new hotels, stadiums, entertainment venues, and university buildings. And as I chronicle in my upcoming book, I too have had to re-invent myself several times….from ballet dancer to Broadway dancer to actress to costume designer. And now, author. Please watch for my book, coming out in the spring.

Women in TV, Film, and (why not) everywhere!

As I work on my book (and yes, I have only 7 more chapters on which to do a substantial re-write and edit!), I think how lucky I have been to be able to pursue a career that I wanted. It wasn’t always so easy for women to choose anything that excited them and go for it.

I have been lucky in my life that I was born into a family where I had many strong women as role models. My paternal step-grandmother was a judge, a mayor, and was, in general, a no-nonsense kind of woman! My great aunt was an obstetrician, one of the first females to graduate in the early 1900’s with a medical degree. There was also a distant cousin who was an Arctic explorer in the early 1900s! So it never occurred to me that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted because I was a woman. It just never entered my mind.

 In high school, most of my classmates were going on to be either nurses or teachers. It seemed a pretty limited selection to me, but I already knew I was going to be a dancer, so what did I care?

 By the early 1970’s I was living in Los Angeles, and it’s not to say that there weren’t obstacles to overcome as a woman. It was difficult at that time, if not downright impossible, for a woman to buy a house without a father or husband to co-sign. Can you imagine! Do you remember Edith Bunker trying to get a loan at the bank? The 1970s were a tumultuous time with all sorts of reexamination of women’s rights going on, and women such as Gertrude Stein, and Erica Jong and Germaine Greer drawing attention. And of course, the demand for equal rights and the sexual revolution changed so much in how we could lead our lives. It was an intoxicating period, with the promise of greater freedom and power!

 And as I started my transition to my career in costume design, many of the top television producers, stars, designers were women. Think Murphy Brown, Designing Women, and Gilmore Girls. The very first producer who took a chance on me, hiring me for The Facts of Life, was a woman, and many of the producers (and a few directors) I worked for in television subsequently were women, including Penny Marshall, Yvette Lee Bowser, Irma Kalish, and Lisa De Cazotte.

 I still believe that it’s important not to feel that you are coming from behind, but that you are starting from the same start line, and that excellence in what you do is the thing that will propel you forward. Not nepotism, not cronyism, not anything but commitment and talent and passion. Call me naive or an optimist, but I’d like to think even men wouldn’t be dumb enough to ignore someone who is really really really good at what they do!

The Far Reaching Arms of the Show Business Family

An interesting thing happened to me this week. In my Yahoo inbox was an email from a total stranger who gently enquired if I would be willing to share my impressions of a mutual friend for an article he was writing. Within 24 hours it seemed I had time-travelled back to the mid 1960’s, and shared stories, memories, and bittersweet reflections with this well-known writer about our friend. More of this experience shortly.

This led me to all sorts of musings. With the 315 million people who live in the United States and the 35 million who live in my former country of Canada, it astounds me how often paths of certain people cross, nearly cross, and re-cross, mostly within the theater, film, and show-business community. The entertainment business is truly a family, an extended dysfunctional family at worst, a close family at best. Sooner or later we all meet each other! The cliche “small world isn't’ it?” might be apt, but hardly explains the remarkable and unexpected connections we often discover by chance.

A couple of years ago I was visiting with fellow Costume Designer Albert Wolsky and we were talking about his early career when he was assisting famed designer Ann Roth. We realized he had outfitted ME for my role as Gwendolyn PIgeon in the National Company of The Odd Couple many years ago. We did not remember each other.

My sense of family has always come from the work I do, the performing companies and film communities I have been part of.  I grew up in England with virtually no cousins and no family other than parents near by. My English grandmother died before I was born. My Canadian grandparents were an ocean away, and I did not meet them until I was six. 

Dancers, in particular, have a strong bond. We all know how hard it is to train to become really good at what we do, and how short our careers will most likely be. Dancers of any age speak a common language, a language of sore muscles, intense and disciplined training, and the pure joy of artistic expression through dance.

A few years ago I was in the fitting room of my costume department at CBS Radford Studios with actress Leigh Taylor-Young, ready to fit her for her costume in the NBC daytime drama Passions. She looked at me strangely and said “were you ever a dancer at the National Ballet School in Toronto?” I was, in fact, at about age 14 and Leigh, a younger dance student, remembered me! How extraordinary! And I thought I was so dull and invisible at that age.

My closest friend as an adult was a dancer I met at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival when we were both still teenagers. We went on to perform together, room together, and go to each other’s weddings. I am still in touch with two other dancers from my earliest days of professional dancing in My Fair Lady. One is now a licensed family therapist living in Pasadena, another is retired and living in North Carolina, but we still email and check on each other frequently, some 50 years later.

Dancers Over 40 is a group in New York, formed to provide a community to support the needs of “mature” dancers and choreographers. I know board member Harvey Evans from when we were both performers on the road in Chicago in the 60’s.  In Los Angeles I am a member of the Professional Dancers Society which keeps us, haha, on our toes!  

Some companies, like the aforementioned My Fair Lady, form strong “families”. Others not so much. Ann-Margret to this day surrounds herself with her dancers and friends from her days of performing live; many still walk together on Saturdays for exercise. The soap opera Passions has a core group that still stays in touch, and Facebook has certainly facilitated that. I used to suffer terribly at the end of a show, as I was constantly losing my families and having to find new ones. We are all scattered and have to go on to other cities and other shows, hopefully to still feel part of a larger community.

Another interesting story (which I have written about before) concerns a young girl who lived in Belarus when Santa Barbara was the first US show to be shown on Russian television. It was an enormous hit, and the bright colors and somewhat unrealistic rich lifestyle was very appealing to those still barely out from the grayness of communism. This young lady, Antonina Grib, reached out to me via email and I responded. After getting a scholarship to study costumes in the US, she eventually came to intern with me on Passions and has since gone on to a very successful career in costuming, working on major TV and film projects. For all the negative things that are written about the internet, without it Antonina and I might never have connected, let alone formed a deep friendship and mentorship.

So back to my new journalist friend: it turns out that as a 17 year old he was a ticket-taker at the National Theater in Washington DC, his home town, and was “introduced not only to the backstage magic but to a real-life cast of charismatic and eccentric players who would become his mentors and friends”.  Though I can’t claim to have been either,  since we did not know each other, our paths crossed a number of times over the years. He saw me at the National Theater in My Fair Lady, later in the out of town try-out of the Broadway musical Hot Spot, and later at the Blackstone Theater in Chicago where we shared, unbeknownst to us, a friendship with a wonderful man, Clayton Coots, who was a mentor to young Frank, and a dear friend to me.  So Clayton was the catalyst, the internet the instrument of Frank finding me, and the telephone made possible our sharing so many of our stories about so many mutual friends.

Here is the link to Frank Rich’s touching article in The New York Magazine

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gay-history-2013-6/

MY LAS VEGAS

I feel a real kinship with Las Vegas, my city of residence since 2008, as it has figured largely in my professional and personal life through 5 decades. 

My association with Las Vegas starts in the 1960's (yes, I was alive in the ‘60‘s!) when, as a very young dancer, I came through the town on the train with the My Fair Lady company, on our way to Los Angeles. It was 2 am and the train stopped on the tracks downtown. I don’t remember a station, though I know there was one.  From our part of the train, we descended into a dirt lot, which we ran across, then crossed a street, and into a casino, what must have been the Hotel California. We had 30 minutes to put our quarters in the slot machines, something I had never seen, before we had to run back across the dirt lot to the train! It all seemed very strange and exotic and somewhat wicked!

I didn't return until the early 1970's when I got my first job in costumes, hired to co-ordinate the dancers’ wardrobe for Ann-Margret's nightclub act at the Hilton International, and then at Caesars. It was one of the highly successful acts of the time with dancers, singers, scenery and costumes galore, a live 30 piece orchestra on stage, and the best production talent around. Elvis Presley used to send Ann-Margret flowers on opening night in the shape of a guitar!   My first professional design was a dress for Ann-Margret that she wore in the TV special "CInderella at the Palace". 

Through Ann-Margret I met Bob Mackie, and my costume career really got underway. In 1980 I returned to Las Vegas for a 2 month stint, staying at the MGM Grand, as assistant to Bob Mackie as we prepared to open Jubilee, (the same show currently running). I was on the eleventh floor when I was awakened by the sound of running feet in the hall and people calling out, and I emerged into the hall to find it full of smoke.  I grabbed my purse, pulled on a sweat suit, and hurried down 11 flights of fire escape stairs emerging into the street, and started to look for my colleagues. The smoke was black and racing up the side of the hotel. Huge helicopters from Nellis AFB were hovering, trying to blow the smoke away from the rescue teams. Police cars, fire engines, news media were starting to arrive amid the chaos. I was barefoot and my feet were freezing until a man stopped and offered me his sneakers, a size 13! I wore them the rest of that day.

There were 14 of us Jubliee costumers from Los Angeles staying at the MGM for the great fire. Sadly, only 13 of us survived. I will never forget that day, nor the kindness of strangers who tried to help us. 

I returned many times in 1981 as we pulled out the ruined costumes from under the stage, led by firemen with flashlights, as there was still no power. We rebuilt the show in Los Angeles, and returned in July to re-do all the fittings, staying at Maxims across the street. 

In the early 80’s, Las Vegas still was small. You could cross Las Vegas Boulevard directly (no overpasses), there was no freeway, we ate at a little dive called The Tower of Pizza. The desert was near. The airport was very small. I don’t even remember noticing the mountains all around...the focus was all on the Strip.

I returned during the 80's now and then to work on shows (such as Splash, at the Riviera) but I wasn't prepared for the change when I returned in the late 80's. The airport had exploded! By this time I was working full time as a costume designer for TV series and films in Hollywood, and occasionally came up to Las Vegas to shoot on location. In 2003 we bought our first house here, and so when my husband and I were ready to make a semi-retirement move, Las Vegas already felt like home.

Since moving here in 2008 I am experiencing Las Vegas in a whole new way. I love looking at the mountains on all four sides of the valley, and in winter I love observing  the snow capped peaks of Mt Charleston out my second floor office window. I hike with friends year round at Red Rock, Lake Mead, or Mt Charleston, and I have discovered all sorts of unique little neighborhoods. In the north part of town where we live, sometimes I come across a small ranch with barns and horses, completely surrounded by new housing developments. I even enjoy hearing the trains that still travel down that same track that I travelled so long ago. There is still a flavor here and there of the old West, ranch life, desert life, mixing with the sophisticated elements of the Strip restaurants, shops and shows.

I visit the Strip quite often (more often than many full-time residents) to attend events, shows, parties, and to work, shop or eat. It’s only 15 minutes away! As I exit the freeway at Flamingo I pass Caesars, where so much happened for me professionally 30 years ago, and the huge bill board for Jubilee, which played was such a pivotal role in my life. I even pass by the fire escape door where I exited the MGM into the cold daylight on Flamingo Blvd. that fateful morning.

Old Vegas, New Vegas, there’s a part of my in all its parts, and I am happy about that.

SAN FRANCISCO, WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE! Plus memories of the late Phyllis Diller

DIANA'S NOTE: I wasn't going to publish this edition of my blog for a week or two, but I saw today that Phyllis Diller has died at age 95. Many of you younger readers will not remember her, but strangely enough, I just wrote about her last night, in paragraph 3 below!

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I spent last weekend in San Francisco, a city I have not visited for at least 20 years. The trip had a dual purpose:  to attend a wedding shower for some dear friends  and to interview one of our finest costume designers Aggie Guerard Rodgers. (The Color Purple, Beetlejuice, Return of the Jedi, need I say more?)

As always, memories came flooding back. I first visited San Francisco in my very early twenties, when I was a dancer with the National company of My Fair Lady. We had previously played in Los Angeles where I saw my first palm tree and ate my first Mexican food, and now we were at the Curran Theater on Geary Street in San Francisco. Right next door at the Geary Theater, Gypsy was playing with Ethel Merman, and since their opening night was right before our opening night, we were able to attend. I had been told that Merman had just heard that Rosalind Russell  was going to play “her” role in the film version, so when she bellowed her opening line “Sing out, Louise” from the back of the house, the place went nuts and cheered and applauded her in support.  Again, when she sang “Mama’s Turn” in Act 2, she brought the house down a second time.

In San Francisco I had my first Ramos Fizz in the little bar across the street, saw my first drag show, and went to the Hungry I to see a “new” comedienne called Phyllis Diller. There was a big line to get in, so, in a moment of unusual bravado, I marched to the head of the line with my dancer friends and asked if they extended “professional courtesy”. They ushered us right in past everyone, including it turned out, our company manager! Diller was hilarious, and we quoted her endlessly for months after that.

Touring was great fun at that age, especially with a big musical, where there were lots of dancers and singers my age to hang out with and go sightseeing with. There was a key group of us that stayed friends from those days to now.

About 8 years later I returned to the Bay Area, this time as choreographer for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The star, the late Godfrey Cambridge, had rented a houseboat in Sausolito for the run and invited one of the dancers to stay there with him, She wasn’t comfortable with that, so she invited me and another dancer to stay there too. Godfrey was habitually running late, and one night the theater called in a panic because the 4 of us hadn’t shown up yet for the show. We hustled Godfrey into the car, and as we crossed the Oakland Bridge toward the theatre in Berkeley, I looked over at the speedometer and saw that he was driving over 100 mph! We moved out the next day - a wee bit too much adventure for our taste!

I returned to San Francisco two times more as an actress with The Odd Couple and later with The Killing of Sister George. Sometimes I was lonely, as plays have much smaller casts, so I would find a ballet class to attend just to be around people. 

I also learned to drive in San Francisco! Having grown up in Toronto, where the public transit system is so good you don’t need a car, and then moved to New York, where having a car is not necessary either, I had never learned to drive. I got my license in Los Angeles and as soon as we got to San Francisco I rented a car and drove every day. I went up and down those steep hills (not stick shift, thankfully), over the Golden Gate Bridge, and down the winding road on the other side to Stinson Beach. It was scary, but I loved driving, and still do!

And then this weekend, I met Oscar nominated costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers. She has lived in the Bay area her whole life and managed a very successful career designing major feature films from her home base in San Francisco, commuting to Los Angeles or location when necessary. A warm and totally down to earth woman, I loved her right away! She shared with me many of her stories and her views for an article I am writing for the Costume Designers Guild website as we had a super lunch at a Creperie in the MIssion District. 

San Francisco - what’s not to like?

(and don't forget to check out my online costume training course at www.HollywoodMentors.co)

MEMORIES OF OLYMPIC COSTUMES!

Back in 1984, I was one of a number of costumers who got to work on the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics!

And while the experience of being there for the that opening, and of seeing the lighting of the Olympic torch, are all among the highlights of my life, the two months leading up to them were anything but.

Bob Mackie and Pete Menefee were the costume designers for every element of the Opening Ceremonies, and each and every outfit worn had to be designed, made, and then fit on the participants, of which there were literally thousands! Our workspace was a huge warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, which had a tin roof, no windows, and was unbearably hot in July. The performers were all assigned a day to come and get their costume and were told to expect to spend at least 3 to 4 hours. When they arrived, their name was checked off against a list, their measurements taken, which were  then sent on to the next "station" while they tried on shoes. Imagine over a thousand pair of shoes in one spot! Once they got to the fitting area, they were handed their costume and sent to a cubicle to try it on. Then they came to me, one of 6 "fitters", where we took in, let out, marked hems, and tried to make each individual look perfect. The costume then went to the alteration department, who tried to complete the alterations quickly for the performer who sat in the waiting area.

The hours were incredibly long, and the work very repetitive, and we were paid a small salary as we had been told we were part "volunteers" and were privileged to be "a part of history".

Some of the tasks were quite amusing, in a weird way. It took two full days to remove the pins from the band members' white dress shirts, which arrived fully folded, pinned, and wrapped in plastic. There were 850 members in the marching band, so.....that meant 850 + shirts to unwrap.

Sometimes I was sent out to shop, which I liked, as it got me out and broke up the day. It also pleased the shop owners that I visited, as I was usually buying in great quantity. One task was to go out and find 300 pairs of legwarmers for the dancers! I bought out every dance shop's supply!

As we got closer and closer to the event, we spent more time at the Coliseum, to set up dress rehearsals, and found that the distances between "stage right" and "stage left" were immense and heaven forbid you forgot an item, as it would take 20 minutes to get back to home base and then back again.

One day as we entered the park, our ID badges around our necks, we spotted one of the European swimming teams getting ready for a training session at one of the pools. Without any self consciousness, they stripped off their shorts, and, as we discovered, many did not wear underwear. They casually pulled on their swim trunks while we tripped over each other taking a look!

The last 4 days before the Opening, we worked 18 hours a day. It was grim. I thought I might literally die from fatique. One night I fell into bed, and it seemed like minutes later when the alarm went off. My husband said I burst into tears as I couldn't believe it was morning already!

But the day of the Opening itself was magic. From the moment we passed through security, we could feel the excitement in the air. Organizers, bigwigs,  coaches, volunteers, assistants, guides, stage crew, all were scurrying around, working feverishly toward the 3 o'clock hour when it all started on the button. One moment sticks out in my mind. Every person in the stands had a colored card on their seat and was told that it was going to be used for a special moment later in the ceremony. At about half way through, they all were told to hold up the card with the silver side facing out. On the count of three they were to turn it over. One! Two! Three! And the whole stadium turned into color, with the cards creating the flags of every country participating! It took my breath away, and once more tears flowed from my eyes, this time from joy!

So watching these Olympics in London, 2012, brings back all the memories, intense, difficult, and exalted, that that opportunity bought me. I  was a lucky girl to be "a part of history"!

BROADWAY AND DANCERS, I LOVE THEM ALL!

Last night I watched “SMASH” on TV and it reminded me how much I love Broadway performers, singers and dancers. Well yes, I was one once, and I treasure every moment I spent performing on several Broadway stages.

I remember those auditions - terrifying! If I got to audition first as a dancer, even in those huge cattle calls (as they were called) on stage where 400 dancers got whittled down to 30 or so for callbacks, I knew I had a very good chance. If then I got to audition as an actress, I knew I had a good chance.  But as a singer? No, no, no. 

I would have worked on a song or two with my coach in preparation, it would go somewhat OK, but the moment I was standing in front of that table of producers and directors, I knew I really sucked. And I knew it after the first few lines of the song, knew the directors wanted to cut me off and were being polite. I would feel so humiliated, and would usually hail a cab and cry in the back seat all the way home to my fourth floor walk-up apaprtment just down the street from Lincoln Center!

But dancing, yes, I usually made it to call-backs, and made it into four different Broadway Shows!

In fact, it was my experience as a dancer that got me my first costuming job. I met one of the producers of Ann-Margret’s lavish Las Vegas act who was looking for someone to co-ordinate the 12 dancers’ and 6 singers’ costumes for her show. I thought I didn’t know anything about costumes, only having worn them, never made them, but the man said I must know what dancers need, and so gave me the job. That was what started it all!

I certainly made some mistakes along the way, especially in the beginning. In one of my early jobs actually creating costumes, I asked to be allowed to make the dancers jumpsuits for a dance number to “Car Wash”. Believe it or not, two way stretch material was not yet on the market, but I was able to find a ski pant fabric that did stretch one way. Thinking the guys would need it to stretch sidesways to allow for their chest expansion, I cut the jumpsuits in the wrong direction. I got that call from Roger Smith that no-one just starting their career wants to get....”your costumes are all ripping at the waist when the boys do the dance number”. A good friend gave me some excellent advice. He said, the best way to deal with a big error like this is to offer several choices of solutions, so I got up my courage to call Roger back and suggest that I come to Las Vegas, and spend the day inserting a stretchy band at the waist so the guys could move. It was a LONG day, as I had 8 jumpsuits to fix in time for them to be worn that night in the show, but there seemed to be no hard feelings. And I NEVER cut stretchy costumes the wrong way again!