High Hat

My awesome pere recently took up the cause of costuming my student for their upcoming production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Which is really very nice of him, since I have a working budget of, like, zero dollars.

In the last 24 hours, I've had a slew of packages arriving with such treats as top hats (including one that collapses!), a monocle, a necklace-magnifying glasses, and a padre hat. This is in addition to the awesome set of hats for the female characters and the smoking jackets for the men my dad got for us at a vintage store downtown when he came out to visit last weekend.


Dr. Chasuble, I presume?


Jack and Algy in smoking jackets and top hats. Despite the evidence to the contrary, we've had many discussions about how you actually wear pants with smoking jackets. Algy is similarly stubborn about wanting to carry a briefcase around. I might lose that battle.


But the best package of all was one that I just can't justify putting into the show.

I mean, is there really any reason why Algernon would have a headless butler?



Any reason at all?



Oh, come on. You know me better than that. I'm not one to sacrifice the integrity of a show for one joke.



And I've explained this to my students over and over again.

But then they came up with this idea that I kinda love -

At the end of the show, as the audience exits the theatre, they want there to be a tombstone with "R.I.P. Bunbury" on it.

And standing next to the tombstone?

Our headless butler.



Thank you, Dad, for getting my students really excited about doing this play!