Quick Costume Changes

During the title song in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Millie has 30 seconds to change from her first outfit to her new modern one.

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mina and lucy had many quick changes in dracula.

one particularily quick one was when lucy had to change out of her dress and hat that she wore in "how do you choose?" right to the scene before "the mist". she wore the second costume under the first...but boy. that was a fast change. and she had to get the hat off and everything. but she made it everytime!

Updated On: 9/24/05 at 11:55 PM

i read somewhere glinda's change is 9 seconds, it was more impressive before the "universal changes" made for the tour since even the wig changed originally.

also the recent rocky horror revival had some really fast changes (i'm still baffled as to how daphne got out of the space-suit, down from the rafters, into the usherette costume, and back into place that quick)

in my production of chicago my roxie has the change from hell going into the second half of nowadays. She does the number up until the announcer break in a blue dress sitting on the stairs, then once the curtain closes she has 30 seconds to change her entire costume, and get on the elevator to make her entrance with velma.

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Doesn't Meg Giry have half a minute to change sometime in act 1?

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I had to do the Bobby/Zangler change...it's all about presetting the clothes and the people who help you.

Smokey joe's cafe, the 4 guys had about 8 seconds in pitch black to change for "On Broadway", that one was fast..

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it is true that the glinda change is only (approx) 9 seconds. a stage miracle!

kristin and idina joke about it on "broadway: the american musical."

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how about baby june in gypsy. she has to change into different costumes for back to back songs. right after baby june and her newsboys, she has to get changed onstage for the whole little "uncle sam" routine

Radames' change from first scene white Linen to second scene red battle gear in Aida is very quick.

Ryan Link who covered Radames on the Aida tour, told a funny story about being late for his second scene entrance the very first time he played the role because he couldn't get changed in time due to a tangled microphone cord. He had to sing the first two lines of Fortune Favors the Brave offstage. And when he finally got on stage, his boots were still undone. Despite all of the choreography during that song, he managed to avoid tripping over his flapping footwear.

After that little mishap, the cast nicknamed him "Bootsie."

And I attended a regional production of Aida this summer in which the actor playing Radames had the same problem. He too had to sing the first 3 lines of Fortune offstage. When he finally made it onstage, everyone there had to work exceedingly hard not to crack up, including the actor himself. Of course, most audience members never knew that anything had gone wrong. Only people who'd seen other productions of the musical picked up on the missed cue.

Updated On: 9/25/05 at 10:28 AM

There is a lightning-fast costume change in Dreamgirls. (I think it's during "Heavy.") The trio runs through a silver curtain and runs back out again, giving the appearence of a seamless costume change. (I think they did it in about 5-10 seconds.) I remember the Broadway audience literally gasping and applauding when it happened.

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Mmmhmm, I think Dreamgirls might take the cake. The three of them have dresses on for the first part of Heavy (the ABC taping), then a silver curtain comes down in front of them, and when they emerge literally four seconds later, they are wearing completely different-looking dresses (though it's still the same dress).

Clara has a relatively fast costume change, in Passion- after the first scene, she goes from (virtually) nothing, to full-blown hoop-skirt-ensemble... thing. I'm wonderful at describing things, aren't I?