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« on: Aug 08, 2007, 07:54 pm »
It does depend a lot on the type of theatre your doing, ie: level of professionalism, location, time, patronage.
For example, I do a lot of work with a Community Youth Theatre in Sydney, where we perform specifically to the age group for 3-10. The young actors are usually around 13-19 years. My personal dress code for myself and the SM team during the rehearsals is "functional" and "comfortable"- jeans, t-shirt or sweater, and sneakers or boots (usually a pair of each) depending on the days to-do list.
During performances, we go to black. Jeans or pants, because of functionality, and either COMPLETELY black sneakers or boots. (Unless there's set-shifting to be done, I usually prefer myself and the crew in sneakers to cut down on backstage noise.) I did recently get myself a hybrid pair of shoes that are sort of dressy leather on the top, steel-capped to protect the toesies, but have a non-slip sneaker-like sole. I'll either put up piccies or find a WWW link for you - they're fantastic, and are made by Clarks here in Australia.
Going back to the type of theatre question - earlier this year I managed "twelfth night" on a Bowling green on the North side of Sydney Harbour. Crazily, the SM team were actually bound by the clubs dress code, so it was black shirts, black dress pants and leather shoes. Even our black windcheaters got a few frowns from some of the more... "conventional" staff members.
I guess it just depends on what the day's job is. If its the first production meeting at a professional gig, go for the collared shirt and pants. If it's a bump-in/bump-out, go for the jeans and t-shirt that won't matter if it gets painty/dirty.