PEOPLE: A Rude Costumer

[madiobrien]

Ok so I am currently working my second show with a costumer at community theatre. The first show she was wonderful didn't have any problems.  But now I'm doing Pajama Game with her again and she has been extremely rude to everyone including me.

For one, she showed up to final dance review and requested that the choregraphy be changed becuase they couldn't do the dances in the choregraphy planned.  And expected the actors to jumps in character shoes that is just not safe in.

Second,  she hasn't been flexible with one specific costume.  One of my actors goes directly form one scene to another with a dance number in between with several lifts over her partners head, the costume provided always flashed everyone.  We requested that we have a different costume, no they gave us a slip. so we tried that but it looks tacky and now we have a bad costume contrast, but we decided we could live with it.

Well the slip broke, so when i put it in the report she sent me an e-mail that said we were in charges of minor repairs (i always have been not a problem) and the any major repairs were obviously a result of carelessness and that the actors would have to pay for it.  
I replied by saying I would fix the costume and that just "FYI" the costume was broken by following her choregraphy (I put this in the e-mail so she could know the extent of the damage & also to imply that the actress should not have to pay for it since ti wasn't her fault)
She replied that she is a professional and should be treated with respect and that she knows she is rightly accusing the actress, cause she knows when its carelessness.
Of course I sent the suck up e-mail i wasn't wanting to be disrecpectful and apologized even though she has been extremely rude and has helped us at all

My poor actress just wants a costume that doesn't flash anyone and looks good,so I'm not sure how to bring this up to my director since it is clearly an issue. and also how to deal with her for the remainder of the run since this will be our first of many costume changes.

Sorry for the venting.
Thanks for any help!!
M

[NomieRae]

Kudos for keeping your head and being the bigger person thus far.

I would most likely handle the situation by sitting down with the costumer (e-mails can come off so catty sometimes) and explaining that the costumes look great, and everyone is really happy with the work, but unfortunately having one actor who cannot execute the choreography in their current costume just isn't going to help the show run smoothly. Also I'd add that while the slip was a great idea, it seems it wasn't going to work with the choreography either. Offer to have your assistant, wardrobe person, or yourself help acquire and test out a different solution. (I wouldn't continue the blame game on who broke it/actor carelessness..thats dirty politics)

Did you suggest the slip? Or just say that her costume was too revealing for choreo (high kicks, etc)? I know that if you try and tell a designer what to do instead of presenting the problem and asking for their solution, things can get tricky. No one wants to be told by another person on the show how to to their job.

Just presenting the issue in a more personal way (rather than in reports) can go a long way, I've found. The costumer may feel like they're under incredible amounts of stress, and everyone seeing on the report that there's a costume issue might add to it. Try and look at it from their point of view, and when all else fails, remind them how much you appreciate them.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.