Out of everything costume designer Marsha Keffer has done for Denton Community Theatre's production of Red, White and Tuna, the hardest assignment has been making actor Justin Harmon look 15 months pregnant.
The Greater Tuna series by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard leans on exaggerations, and the Fourth of July-themed installment requires the whiny Charlene Bumiller to be nearly too pregnant to believe.
Keffer said the costume piece has been a trial-and-error project.
"That tummy has been a tough one," Keffer said. "First we used that stuffing - Poly-fil. But, you know, pregnant tummies don't smoosh. And the first one was pretty smooshy. So now we're working with rubber foam."
For his short scene as Charlene, a military wife whose husband is on a tour of duty, Harmon is strapped into a prosthetic pregnant belly the size of a swollen beach ball. Shoulder straps center it, and a belt is supposed to keep it from swinging from side to side. At a Thursday night rehearsal, costume change assistant Liz Seibt informed director Donna Trammell that Harmon had experienced a wardrobe malfunction - the belt was too tight and the Velcro gave way.
"We're still working it out," Keffer said.
Trammell said the company saved some of the costumes it purchased for A Tuna Christmas, which made dressing the tall and broad-shouldered Buster Maloney and the trim, shorter Harmon a little easier.
"Have you ever tried to find white high-heel shoes in a [woman's] size 12?" said Trammell, who returned to direct this installment of Tuna. "These were the hardest thing for me to find."
A vintage pair of navy lace-ups for Maloney's Aunt Pearl were altered by the crew, Trammell said. A crew member added chunky four-inch heels to the shoes.
Maloney wears white canvas-style shoes in a four-inch wedge heel. He also wears shiny red satin ballet flats, but Trammel said the heels sent her on a mission. In their roles as square-dancing waitresses Inita Goodwin and Helen Bedd, Maloney and Harmon wear red, bandana-style shirts and flouncy Western skirts that were shortened from five-tier prairie skirts.
"We had to buy the petticoats," Trammell said.
The company splurged on scarlet crinoline petticoats, which look to be constructed in the same way that ballet tutus are - layer upon layer of stiff stuff holding the skirts out at a stark angle.
The pair's dancing shoes - red leather boots for Inita and Lone Star flag cowboy boots for Helen - never make it on the actors' feet.
"They're great and they match the costumes so well, but they're way too small for them to get on their feet. They just carry them on," Trammel said.
The Tuna plays are popular in part because two men play all the roles - male and female. All the roles are fully costumed. Hats, wigs, jewelry, shoes and props are changed often in less than a minute. Assistants work in teams to transform Maloney and Harmon into their different characters, making sure that the shoulder pads used as bosoms are in place when the actors are playing the role of a woman. Leigh Ann and Rob Stadt dress Maloney, and Seibt and Jaime Rodriguez get Harmon in and out of his costumes. The quick changes are so fast that in rehearsal they use "practice" wigs and mustaches.
"Because it's so fast, it just tears up the wigs," Trammel said. "We have a different set for the performances, and they have to be restyled after every performance."
Red, White and Tuna opens Friday at the Campus Theatre.
LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
RED, WHITE and TUNA
Who: Denton Community Theatre
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 24-25 and July 1-2; 2 p.m. Sunday, June 26 and July 3
Where: Campus Theatre, 214 W. Hickory St.
Details: Tickets cost $20. For reservations, call 940-382-1915 or visit www.dentoncommunitytheatre.com/tickets.shtml
Little town, big drama
Red, White and Tuna finds the small Texas town on the eve of the big Fourth of July celebration and high school reunion. Familiar faces abound to keep the muck stirred up: the widowed Bertha Bumiller, her reform-school-turned-art-world-star son, Stanley, and her pregnant, testy daughter, Charlene; the permanently disgruntled Didi Snavely and her husband, R.R.; waitresses Inita Goodwin and Helen Bedd; animal rights activist Petey Fisk; rivals Pearl Burras and Vera Carp; and then some. Actors Justin Harmon and Buster Maloney reprise their roles in the comedy. Harmon plays nine roles; Maloney plays eight.
