Anyone here made their own cats costume? I'm working on one, because I'm in a community production of Roger and Hammerstien Cinderella, and was cast as Charles the Cat (who turns into a coachman), and decided to make a jellicle wig for the show, and I'll probably make an actual costume, too. It's going to be white, with a little bit of tan mixed in. They said to get a solid colored costume, but I've notcied in these sort of things, if you make somthing totally awesome and cool looking, people don't tend to care whether or not they break the rules...

I haven't made my own costume, but I was in a production of CATS that did. Here's basically what they did for each costume:

-Bought a unitard and painted it (while being worn by the actor so it would come out right)
-Used a LOT of hairspray to style the wig, then spraypainted it the colors they wanted
-Bought felt (or other materials) and sewed to make leg/arm warmers (elastic was used to make them stay on)
-Used remaining felt, yarn, etc, for fur patches in various places on the unitard to give it a more 3D effect.
-Bought dance shoes (look more like paws than regular shoes) and painted them (although they tended to chip a lot and required a fresh coat every few days)
-Used various color bases/makeups for the face.

If you'd like, I can post a picture on here so you can get a sense of what the final product would look like. But I'll say it turned out better than anyone had ever expected.

Good luck!

Wow, that's really cool! Yeah, I'd love to see a picture! It would be so awesome to be in a production of Cats. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm a good enough dancer to do this show. I have the singing and acting parts of theatre handled, but I've never been a great dancer. I'm thinking of taking some basic dance classes, though, so I have enough basic knowledge of dance to do well enough with choreography, like tap and jazz or hip-hop.

Alex has pretty much listed the process... but there are also ways to hand-make Jellicle wigs. Basically you use a pair of nylons to make the wig base (tie off the legs and use the waist/crotch part as a wig cap) and then stitch rug yarn through it, tie a knot, fray the yarn, and repeat ad nauseum. Once you've covered the whole thing, gather bits for ears, trim, and style (add bangs and whatnot). No hairspray or dye required. You can do the same with crepe wool. Both give a pretty good imitation of the yak hair from the real wigs, though the look of crepe wool is better in my opinion.

:wub: I commissioned a swoon-worthy Bombalurina wig (since I have all the other pieces for the costume) a couple months back. It's hand made out of crepe wool and the thing is gorgeous. I can't wait to get my hands on some facepaint and try out the whole costume.

Sure - here are two good closeup photos. The first one's of a random character (actually, Grizabella during the opening number before she puts her Grizabella costume on), and the second is of Demeter and Bombalurina (who look so much alike because we made them sisters in our production).





I forgot to mention - for the tails, we braided together different materials, then used black rope to tie them on.

Oh, that's really cool! Thanks for the tips! Very nice costumes, Alex! I'd push Cats at my school, but I don't think we have enough people, let alone enough who can dance...We're a very small school...this years graduating class had about 75 people in it...

Just out of curiosity, who did you play in your production?

I made costumes from Cats waaay back in the past. I don't know if I'll ever make another one - I don't want to do all that painting again. I'll probably commission a costume from someone else if I ever get the money.

I just do costumes for lots of other (generally easier) things now.

Thanks, Rubidia!

In our production, I was the male dance captain and played Tumblebrutus and Gus the theatre cat. In our production, we didn't do Growltiger's Last Stand, though, which was of course a big disappointment for me and the girl who played Jellylorum XD Also, it was kind of weird because all of my lines as Tumblebrutus are Alonzo's in the movie, and my costume looked just like Alonzo's in the movie. so I usually tell people I was Alonzo XD But technically my name was Tumblebrutus! :wacko: It was loads of fun and QUITE a workout with all that dancing!

I hate when productions do that (switching the roles/names around)! It's so freaking confusing! <_<

Also, the idea of the male dance captain playing Gus makes me smile for some reason. Usually Gus gets the short end of the stick...

Very cool! Sounds like a lot of fun! I'll try and work my way up to Cats, starting with my lovely part of Charles, the cat/coachman. :)