Planning Lord Farquaad costumes

The last few days I have been obsessing over the Lord Farquaad costumes I have been assigned.  This is for "Shrek the Musical" being staged by a local theater company, Bank Street Players.  I was able to watch the first full-cast read-through of the script a couple of weeks ago and was blown away by the talent!  This is going to be such a fun show!

In "Shrek the Musical," Lord Farquaad wears 3 costumes - an Exercise costume (sweatshirt, sweatpants, etc.), a Ruling costume (fancy royal outfit) and a Wedding costume (a short appearance at the end of the play).  I have been assigned the Ruling and Wedding costumes.

One interesting aspect of these costumes is that the actor will be on his knees for the entire performance!  There will be small fake legs hanging from his belt to the ground to represent Farquaad's disproportionately tiny legs, with the actor's real legs clothed in black and also hidden by a black cape.  Here is an image from
http://www.jimhillmedia.com/mb/images/upload/Shrek-Farquaad-Landscape-we.jpg



Unfortunately, there is no standard, really, for these costumes.  So I browsed references and pictures of Lord Farquaad online, noted the different costume designs that have been used, consulted with the very talented and organized Costume Mistress Paulette Morgan, and surveyed the fabric and trim choices available in town.  Given that Farquaad will be onstage with red, blue, and yellow-clothed dancers as shown above, Paulette and I decided to use red, blue, and yellow for the Ruling costume.  We will go with a pleated skirt and use the puffed upper sleeves and round flared hat seen above.  We will get the best and cheapest (!) fabrics we can and use gold sparkly trim to give it the bling it needs.

The parts of his Ruling costume are:  Cape, tunic, pleated skirt, puffed upper sleeves, fitted lower sleeves, gloves with gauntlets, and hat.  After making a sketch of each one I estimated the amount of fabric needed and went shopping.

Below is a photo of the fabrics before I started cutting.  The red is a pretty corduroy from the clearance table, the large blue is fleece, the small blue is a satin remnant, and the small red fabric is a sparkly red stretch.  The yellow bundle is a fleece remnant.  Note:  Remnant = cheap!

I have measurements for the actor who will portray Farquaad, but a fitting will be needed fairly early in the process.  So, allowing for adjustment, I went ahead and cut and partially sewed as many pieces as I could.

 This weekend, when Paulette has Farquaad's puffy chest ready, I will fit the pieces to the actor and pin everywhere needed to make it fit.  Hopefully, no re-cutting or piecing will be needed!  I will also have to get a tracing of his hand for the gloves.   After that, I should be able to stitch the entire costume together and bling it up with the gold trim I got on sale. The only remaining really tricky part is to design the hat so that it stands up and holds its shape.

The Wedding costume is next.  I will be using the exact same design but with different fabrics - probably white with gold.  If I can keep good notes and patterns for the Ruling costume, the Wedding costume should be a snap.  But, as we know, the unexpected lurks around every corner.  So no relaxing here until it is done!