homeschooldrama.com blog
How to Direct a Play
Don't have a big budget? No problem. Don’t sew? No problem. There are a lot of creative and affordable ways to make costumes for a play. Sometimes choosing the right play or using a little creativity helps you simplify the costume needs.
Hi! My name is Danielle and in my twenty years of homeschooling I have enjoyed directing numerous plays with my kids and our fellow homeschoolers and want to share what I’ve learned and continue to learn with you.
When it comes to costumes you usually don’t have the budget or the time to make all the costumes for every actor. When doing a play with a homeschool group, the parents are usually very involved and able to help. If every parent helps with their child’s costume, then the work is divided more evenly and no one person is taking on too much.
When making a costume, try to look around the house to see what you have before you spend any money. Consider if a friend has something you can borrow. Halloween costumes you already own or after Halloween sales are a great place to look as well. Also you can go to a consignment shop or a thrift store like Goodwill to find something affordable that can work either as a full costume or material that can be turned into something fabulous.
I’m not the greatest at making costumes, but I have definitely found moments of creativity when given enough time to look around at what I already own. For The Big Race, my son was one of the sports commentators who happened to be a cheetah. One day, when looking down at the bathmat in my bathroom, I realized that the backing and the yarn on the top would make the perfect texture for ears. With my friend’s glue gun, I was able to use the corners for the ears, then I could also use some of the remaining for his face, the back of his hands, and her son’s costume since he was a bobcat. Add a little paint and voila!
Usually, I don’t go around the house cutting up my rugs, but this was perfect, and I needed a new rug anyway. 😊 Human-looking animals are also very easy because they can wear human clothes, so there is less fur to worry about.
For the other animal characters in the play, The Big Race, they are an assorted group of animals and can be transformed simply by adding some bunny ears, whiskers, a nose or a beak. The crows in the play used visors as their beaks so you could clearly hear them speak, while a goose used a cone shaped beak around her nose and mouth, with the bottom portion cut out so you could clearly hear her. The tortoise had normal clothes in the color green, but then added a round garbage can lid to his back for his shell.
In one play, my kids were a rat and a pig. I bought double extra-large sweatshirts: one in gray and one in pink. For the rat, I turned the sweatshirt inside out (the furry side 😉) and upside down and had my son stick his legs into the arm holes. The bottom of the sweatshirt went all the way up to his armpits, so we borrowed a similar color hoody sweatshirt from a friend to wear on top, underneath the upside-down sweatshirt and blended the two together.
Safety pins were my friends for that outfit since I couldn’t make any permanent changes with the borrowed hoody. I used some Velcro in the hole where the head normally goes through to close that up and for easy access when he needed to add a little pillow to make the rat look fatter after eating way too much. We bought a rat nose and made some ears out of wire and some material to safety pin onto the hoody, and connected a pool noodle to the back of the sweatshirt as his tail.
For the pig, the sweatshirt stayed right side up, but since it was double extra-large on an elementary sized girl, it fit like a dress. Again, I used Velcro to seal up the bottom so it looked like she was wearing a one piece shorts set. The sleeves were cut and pink tights were put on her arms and legs. Since she also was a ballerina when not performing in plays, she had pink ballet shoes for her feet. Then we added a headband for her ears and a pipe cleaner for her tail.
Overall, they were very cheap and easy to make costumes since the sweatshirts were on sale in a bin for the holidays. Onesie pajamas can work good for furry animal costumes, too.
For the spider in the play, the family created the spider’s costume using a black trash bag stuffed for the bubble-like body on her back and foam pipe coverings from a hardware store for the spider's legs. She wore a black leotard with yoga pants on her legs, then another pair on her arms which connected with the trash bag body and the legs on her back. Such creativity!
In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, my daughter was the White Rabbit. We dressed her in a vest we found at Goodwill and a borrowed suit jacket. For the white fur, we used white sweatpants, white gloves and rabbit ears we borrowed from a friend. Paint a few whiskers and a nose on her face, add a pocket watch and you have a White Rabbit.
That same year my son was one of the Queen of Heart’s soldiers. We made playing cards out of white posterboard and construction paper. One card on the front and one on the back connected together with some elastic over the shoulders like a sandwich board. It was fun and easy to make.
Sometimes regular clothes work perfectly for the role. When my daughter acted in a scene from Much Ado About Nothing at her graduation, she could wear the dress she already planned to wear under her cap and gown. No more, no less.
When my daughter played the teacher in our Thanksgiving play, A Reason to be Thankful, she could wear a simple skirt and blouse. If you don’t want to worry about costumes, choose a play with everyday outfits.
For the Nativity plays and other Biblical stories we have done, we use any type of material we come across. It can be an old sheet, a tablecloth, or remnants from a friend who sews. Whatever the material, I simply figure out the average size of the actors, fold the material in half and cut a hole for the head to go through. Take some smaller pieces to put on their head and wrap around their waist and you have an affordable, super simple, no sew costume. Roman togas are also very easy to make.
In Macbeth the students have done a bunch of different things for costumes. One Macbeth simply wore a black dress shirt and pants. We’ve had construction paper crowns to the more fancy looking crowns with a royal robe that had been left over from a VBS. Some groups have had every character wear all black, then change something with color to signify the role they were playing. The witches had black tablecloths or sheets to cover them and give just the right look, while the murderer looked like a ninja completely covered except for his eyes.
One actor demonstrated the Ghost of Banquo by putting a flashlight under his chin pointing up towards his face, while another put a piece of tulle over him to look like a floating ghost. I don’t even think it mattered what Lady Macbeth wore, since her cruel demeanor and later guilty insanity said all it needed to say.
Trees aren't human characters, but one time my daughter and her friends were trees when they acted out a story from a book. They wore brown shirts and pants, then grabbed some branches to hold on to. Although not human characters, they were still able to wear clothes they already owned for the part. Simple, but it got the point across.
You can direct a play by taking it one rehearsal at a time. Just remember you don't have to stress about costumes with these simple costume ideas:
have parents help you
choose a play with simple costumes
animal costumes can be easy to make
use items from around the house
borrow from a friend
go to Goodwill or another thrift store
take advantage of after Halloween sales
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If you’re looking for a play to direct or perform, check out these plays! If you want more details on how to direct a play, check out How to Direct a Play - a step-by-step guide!
Thanks for joining us!
Danielle at homeschooldrama.com