Road to Opening Week 6: Cynthia Dale On Rehearsals for A Little Night Music

Call me silly, call me shallow, call me vain, but I don't really like to eat before a costume fitting.

I wish I didn't care. I know it's crazy and a mind game, and it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

But.....

Squeezing into a costume does not bode well for the day.

No matter how old you are, what size you are or how many shows you have done, costume fittings can be a challenge.

The artisans who build them here at the Stratford Festival are fabulous, and they do everything in their power to make each and every costume absolutely perfect.

If I need to dance all over the stage, they make sure I can do it. If I need to sing a lot and have extra diaphragm room, they will make that happen. And if I need an extra hook on my waistband, so that I can eat between shows, they have been known to give me that too. (One size for matinees and one size for evenings, we like to say....)

You want the costumes to look and feel fabulous....and often you actually want them to help you find the character!

A corset makes you stand differently. A slinky gown can help you tap into a level of juice that you have been looking for. The proper pair of shoes or boots can help you to stride or mince and even breathe right where the character lives.

The designers I have been lucky enough to work with have been the cream of the crop. From the legendary Desmond Heeley, who gloriously designed Camelot and made me feel as if Guinevere truly was the most beautiful magical woman who ever lived, to the fabulous Dana Osborne, who designed Cat on A Hot Tin Roof..... I remember referring to the extra padding that was used to help fill out my boobs in that show as my 'kittens.'

But the designer I have worked with the most over the years is the extraordinary Debra Hanson. She has taken me from Aldonza, the gutter snipe in Man of La Mancha, to the glamorous Dorothy Brock in 42nd Street, to the phenomenal transformation and splendour of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

I am so grateful she is the designer this year of costumes and sets for A Little Night Music.

Turn of the century fashion has never looked so magnificent.

These costumes are quite simply drop dead gorgeous because nobody does elegance, class, style and beauty like Ms Hanson.

The dresses with layers of silk and organza and beading and lace. The hats with flowers and feathers and sweeping lines. The men with crisp stature and handsomely cut tailoring. The exquisite fabrics with depth of reds and shimmers of gold. The softest sweetest pinks and richest shades of mauves. The stripes, the flowers, the bustles the corsets. The parasols, the purses, the shaped gloves and the tassels. The bedazzling jewellery and perfectly period shoes.

All of it, every detail, is meticulously gone over with the eye of the expert that she is.

I trust her discerning taste and knowledge to dress Charlotte Malcom in extraordinary costumes. So no matter how I feel on any given day, I will be dressed in beauty that will take an audience's breath away.

How lucky can a gal get?

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