Musicians in Sheep's Clothing

Every once in a while, a hard-working musician lands an opportunity to strip our appropriate black attire and wear a costume. This can be fun. Or not. This is why: Costumes often come with costume designers. Naturally, their main priority is what you look like on stage. Their last priority: that you can breathe or play your instrument. Another compounding factor is that the decision to put musicians in costumes and parade them around on stage is often a last minute decision on the part of the director. Thus, costumes must be scrounged from whatever is left on the floor. In my case, standing all of four feet eleven-and-a-half inches, the costume is twelve sizes to big and held in place by no less than twenty safety pins.

On one occasion, the size worked to my advantage as it allowed space for four layers of clothes underneath- very important when you play the outdoor Shakespeare festival and the temperature is a tropical forty-five degrees. The costume in question was a tuxedo.

Oddly, this was not the last time I was dressed as a man.

And then there is body paint. If you don't love being slathered in layers of toxic green do not play for the circus. Although, I once wore a three-foot beehive wig when playing for a circus. Talk about a balancing act...

Perhaps the most elaborate costume was the one I wore for the International Dance Festival in San Francisco. Two words: Polka Band

What you can't see from this angle is the thick braid of fake hair attached to the back of that bow. Shirt- twelve sizes too big. I could barely find my hands. The look is completed by bright red lace-up boots, which would have looked great with any other outfit.

By the way, the other guys (Dan Cantrell and Eric Perney) looked pretty snazzy in their outfits.

All in all, we all like a bit of dress-up, though most is better as a distant memory.