WriteFest Tech and Cataloguing Costumes

Last Sunday was technical rehearsal day for WriteFest. With eight sets of sound and lighting requirements, making sure everyone has the right settings and props in the right place at the right time this was a long day for the technicians and stage management.

Also going on in the foyer was the latest day of cataloguing the costumes. Progress has a huge collection of costumes, some of them valuable period pieces, many handmade beautiful costumes and some moth eaten and falling apart. The problem is that there are so many it is very hard to know what we have and where to find it.

Chris Moran has taken on the job of sorting through all the costumes, throwing away the rubbish and creating a database of every single piece. The idea is that it will then be much easier for productions to find what they need and we will be able to hire out costumes to earn some revenue for the theatre. Luckily Chris has lots of willing helpers for this mammoth task including the invaluable Barbara Bentley.

Barbara showing her costume 'bible'
(not that she ever needed to refer to it!)

Barbara was in charge of the wardrobe at Progress for many years and has a wealth of knowledge. She can tell at a glance what period a piece is as well as usually telling us what plays it has been used in, where it came from and who wore it. She made many of the costumes herself including seventeen togas and tunics for the Abbey Ruins production of Julius Caesar.







Cataloguing involves assigning each piece a unique number and a code to indicate what type of costume it is. A photo is then taken showing the number and code, details are entered into a database and a laminated label showing its number is pinned to the costume.

This is the third costume cataloguing Sunday and so far over 100 have been done. There are still many more to do and more days are being planned for the new year. If you would like to get involved then email Chris at cmoran@ntlworld.com



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Coming up -

6th Annual WriteFest 8th - 10th December 2011

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman,  Adapted by Robert Kauzlaric 19th - 28th Jan 2012
(There has been a lot of interest in this production from Neil Gaiman fans, tickets are now on sale and selling fast so if you want to be sure of one then book soon.)

See Progress Theatre website for details of all our productions and auditions.