Stitching the West: Mrs. Lee Brings 'Buckshots and Blossoms' to Life

Ashlynn Morgan
Social Media Manager
  The Melodrama ‘Buckshots and Blossoms’ was performed on March 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th. From painting sets to sewing fruit for the audience to throw, Bonneville students dedicated hundreds of hours to bring the comedy ‘Buckshots and Blossoms’ to life.The melodrama is a comedy show with exaggerated emotions and over the top comedy with character archetypes such as; The Hero, The Villian, and The Damsel in Distress. 
  Putting together the show takes numerous hours of work from teachers, parents, and students, with all actors and tech students needing a certain number of hours helping with building the set. With the show being an 1800’s western the cast has to have time accurate costumes to help the show come to life. Mrs. Lee joined the BHS production team in the 2022-2023 school year. She enjoys finding costumes from the 1950s, modern is normally the easiest. Choosing a costume for a character can be difficult, the goal of a costume is to showcase their personality in most shows whether they are messy, clean, proper, comedic, and to show what class the character could be in. Lee has to read through the script a couple times to gain an understanding of all the characters and their personalities. An example of this was a character named ‘Cactus Kate’ from the previous melodrama ‘Buckshots and Blossoms,’ where the character was “rough and tumble” and Lee did not want to put her in a dress or skirt, thinking it would not fit the character. 
  The most difficult part of costuming is sizing, not every item of clothing will fit everyone and sometimes the outfits that work for the characters do not fit the actor. In the end her favorite part of costuming is when “Actors do a great job of portraying their characters but there is something magical that happens when set, props, and costumes combine with the actors' portrayal”.  When asked the worst thing that happened to a costume she could not remember exactly, she remembered costumes/props that were difficult. One example she used was the egg for Suessical. She had to find a way to make an egg in three parts so an elephant bird could break out every night. Stage magic often requires technical trial-and-error, like the time a pearl necklace held together by magnets refused to cooperate during a performance of "A Murder is Announced.
  Costumes help bring shows to life in theater, and the theater department is extremely thankful to have Mrs. Lee assisting with costumes.

Logan skoy-When measurements are off because it might all have to be redone if it's off and with painting if it's not the right colors the third thing has to be redone, and it'll continue to be redone until it's correct.

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