So I bought this awful dress a few weeks ago.

Total mess.
Shoulder pads, a hidden button placket and a bunch of other misery. I liked the bottom half of it though, and decided to make it into just a skirt.

First I chopped it in half.

Then I bought a little spool of ribbon from the craft store.

It wasn’t as wide as I wanted it to be, so I cut it in half and sewed the sides together with my ancient little sewing machine.

Then I sewed it to the top of the bottom of the dress.

I put in a snap and a hook and eye, tied the ends of the ribbons together and tried it on with some sweaters.

The end!

If you’re in LA this Saturday, Oct 3rd, 2009, I will be making my Geffen Playhouse debut in “OOOoogy Green and Other Fables” as part of the Geffen’s Saturday Scene series for children!
OOOoogy Green is the story of a catepillar who nobody likes. He’s afraid to be different, but with the help of puppets, music and some fables, his friends teach him that what makes him different is what makes him special! I play a butterfly.

The original production of this show at the Celebration Theatre received a Critic’s Pick in Backstage Magazine.
The show starts at 11 am and is appropriate for kids ages 3 and up. One Performance Only!!

Oct. 3, 2009
Geffen Playhouse
10886 Le Conte Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Tickets are $15.
Call: 310-208-5454.

If you are not a child, or interested in children’s theatre, but would still like to catch me on stage, I’m also starring in Ray Bradbury’s “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena.

Five Latinos from East LA each chip in $20 to buy one $100 vanilla-ice-cream-white summer suit. Each has big plans for what he’ll accomplish once he looks the way he will in that suit, but trouble brews when it’s the neighborhood ne’er-do-well’s turn to wear their prized possession. I play a floozy.

LA Times review

7 more weekends of shows!
Opens on Sat Sept 26th
Closes on Nov 14th
Fri/Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm

Fremont Centre Theatre
1000 Fremont Avenue
South Pasadena, CA 91030

Ticket Prices:
$10 Preview
$20 General Admission
$15 Seniors
$10 Student

Reservations
(323) 960-4451

Since Anthropologie won’t make clothing in my size, I’ve gotten a little arty farty.

Last winter I brought a suitcase of stuff to sell at Re/Dress and got $270 in store credit, so I was a little less picky than I usually am when it comes to choosing clothing on which to spend my money.
I found this unbelivably comfortable, really flattering, linen/cotton knit dress in this horrifying coral/olive/cream varigated pattern and figured I’d get a little creative.
My shopping accomplice thought $50 was way too much to spend on an experiment, but in my estimation, it was free money! If it was a disaster, all I would be out was some free money.

So, first I bought a box of RIT dye and tried to get my mom to let me use her washing machine to dye it. She had a heart attack when I suggested such a thing and sent me into her kitchen with a giant pot.

The pot turned out fine and I had a fancy raspberry dress! I wore it a couple times in that state, but since it was knit, it started to get a little droopy and since it was knit, I was scared to just chop off and hem the droops. Instead, with the assistance of my duct-tape dress form, I pinched up a bunch of pieces and safety-pinned them as if my dress was a fancy wedding cake.

Then, I sewed a bunch of buttons to each other, one on either side of the fabric lumps so that the dress stress was more on the buttons and less on the knit.

I think it turned out pretty decently. I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I try to wash it.. I’ll probably wait a reaally long time, and then get it dry cleaned.

Dress: Re/Dress, dyed and weddingcaked by me!
Shoes: Ross
Bag/Earrings: Goodwill

Then I got this dress from Jen’s Fashion Plus, but I didn’t really like the roll-highlighting action it had going on. So I tied part of it in a knot and stuck a safety pin deep down inside so it wouldn’t come out, and then wrapped those side straps around front and up over my bra straps like some of that convertible-wrap dress nonsense, and that was it. I now have a fancy dress and no place to wear it to.

Anyone know any gainfully employed heterosexual bears in Southern California who might like to take me on a date?
I hear this one’s taken.

Thanks.

x-posted here n there.

Amazing things I’ve seen this week:

Newsweek breaking free from the herd:
Why America Hates Fat People

Fat and Healthy: Why It’s Possible

Send Newsweek pictures of yourself being fat and active.

The Sartorialist wants to take pictures of fat people too, but he says we won’t let him.

But best of all, the World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Thanks Margarita!!!

I know I’ve been MIA here for a while now, but I have a really good excuse.

I’ve been hard at work on a production of Neil LaBute’s Fat Pig at the Repertory East Playhouse in Santa Clarita. I’m playing Helen alongside a really really great cast.. I’ll post a teaser trailer here as soon as it’s up.

We open July 10th and run for 3 weeks on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, until closing on Saturday, July 25th. Tickets are $18. -available at http://www.repeastplayhouse.org or by calling 661.288.000

I’ve been literally fantasizing about playing this part since I first read about Ashlie Atkinson in 2004. If you’re anywhere in the LA area- please please come and check us out!

So I got a third email today about the casting of some new reality show starring plus-size women.
I mean absolutely no disrespect if you’ve gone in for the casting or think it’s awesome or whatever. I love reality TV just as much as everybody else does and watch way way way too much of it. For real.
However, in addition to my own near miss, I have the luxury of watching these shows with my sound mixer and story editor friends: people who get to be physically present at the scene of the crime and get to slice and dice it any way they see fit. They sit and reminisce about what actually happened on the shoots- Who actually said what and in which context; how it looks now; hypothesizing and analyzing what the invisible producers were scheming and how successful they were in creating a villain or a hero; who got frankenbit and how often, etc etc etc. What “really happened” and what we think we’re being led to believe. And now I do it constantly myself. The girl’s wearing a sweater in one shot, and not in the following. The hiccups in a person’s speech- the artfully inserted B-roll.. It’s all I can think about now.

Long story short, I’m WAY too much of a control freak for reality TV stardom.

And granted, none of this is fact, just my healthily paranoid opinion. TO ME, this Big Hearted Love Affair show sounds a whole lot like somebody’s idea of a hilarious joke.
Fancy romantic music plays… the camera caresses some beefcake as a sexy masculine voiceover begins …”You loved The Bachelor, but are you ready for a REAL MAN? This guy is totally hot, rich, smart, and kind to chickens. He’s looking for a woman as REAL as he is. But can he handle… A REAL… BIG… FAT… WOMAN!?!?!” the music screeches to a halt, something like Fat Bottom Girls, or Baby Got Back, or She’s a Brick House starts thumping as clips of fat women in tiny, shiny outfits eat and cavort and cry and throw things at eachother.

Because, if they’re scouring the internet like this for the fat ladies… obviously they need a lot of us.
The casting says “In this romantic competition of love and seduction, one big and beautiful woman will become the envy of all others and attain the love of lifetime.” And it SOUNDS like you might get to be the Bachelorette, with the studly studs all vying for your attention, but I will bet you one hundred and fifty dollars that the fats are the boogers in this nostril and not the finger.

I wish MTV or E! or VH1 or whatever MajorTelevisonNetwork is airing this show was interested in an uplifiting and stereotype busting party, but I just don’t have any faith that this show isn’t crossing it’s fingers and hoping to god it’s the next Rock of Love or Joe Millionaire or Douchebag School.

Actually, the more I think about Tool Academy, the more creeped out I get. What if, instead of “unsuspecting bad boys” being tossed into a Charm School… some genius is hoping for “unsuspecting fatty fats” thrown into a Biggest Loser competition where they’re not only competing for a “Shot at Love”, they’re also shooting for a “Shot at Life”. Or maybe there’ll just be one big orgy of feeding and trashyness. Nothin says lovin like a kiddie pool full of mayo… right? RIGHT??!!

Obviously it’s no news that reality TV production involves lots of tricky tricky trickery. These shows are dependent on deception and people making fools of themselves. Happy, well-adjusted people do NOT make good TV. And if you’re not crazy on your own, producers will “introduce situations” in an effort to make you crazy, and if THAT doesn’t work, then they rely on the good ol’ story editors to highlight and insert and delete and make you LOOK crazy.

Maybe I’m a hypercritical misanthrope but when I see shit like the “Reunion Special” for second season of the Rock of Love, when Destiney is forced to watch footage of her recently deceased father (like seriously 2 weeks recently deceased) and suffers a friggin hysterical shaking breakdown right there on national TV, VH1 chooses to AIR the shit and congratulates itself all the way to the bank. I just can’t believe that they’re not hoping that the fats will be next on the chopping block.

And I know that by watching the shows I’m feeding them and making the airwaves a terrible place. I know it. I’m sorry.
And I have to say that if I know you and you are or want to be on this show, you are a being far far far braver than I, and I don’t think you’re stupid or naive or trashy. I really sincerely wish you all the luck and strength in the universe, because I just don’t trust the motherfuckers. But I totally want to hear all about everything about it.

ETA: OH WAIT. OH FUCKING WAIT.

Dude, I am way late to the party, but you can totally watch every episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race right here: http://www.logoonline.com/shows/dyn/rupauls_drag_race/series.jhtml

And naturally, I am in love with the fat one.
Victoria Pork Chop Parker is so effing gracious I can’t get over it. AND they’ve got a really interesting conversation about body image and the perception of fat going on in the green room video:
http://www.logoonline.com/video/misc/337592/under-the-hood-episode-1-fat-girls-sexy-shooters.jhtml?id=1603692

Amazing things that RuPaul has said that I’m not sure what they mean:
“I think you MAY need to take a pregnancy test.”
“I have consulted with the judges, my lawyers and my housekeeper…”

Also fantastic is how they use the word “fishy” to mean… feminine? Superfemme? ladylike? I don’t know, but I love it.

Well, altered it anyway.

I’m pretty POed that I didn’t take a ‘before’ picture, but I found this blousy plaid thing at the thrift store and thought I’d monkey around. It looked like a nightgown, but itchier. Kind of like this:

But plaid. And with dolman sleeves.
I don’t think it was a nightshirt originally intended for a fat body because my boobs made the front hem hike up
like 7 inches. I thought hemming the back to make it even would be a disaster because the stripes would make the whole fiasco completely obvious and just wearing a belt looked weird too.

I was just going to sew down the sides and make it a little more fitted, but it had pockets! I didn’t want to hack those out, so I decided to make a whole bunch of little pleats.

There were pleats at the shoulders already, so I just ironed them flat and pinned them at the waist where I wanted the thing smaller. The plaid was kind of helpful at that point because I just had to start sewing at the red stripe and end a little above the white ones.

I think I broke my sewing machine, so I just sat down with a needle and thread and had at it while I watched 5 or 6 episodes of Intervention on YouTube.

I made like 5 pleats (or “pintucks” apparently) under each boob and then 10 more across the back. And magically the back hem shrank up. Now there’s only like a 2 inch difference between front and back hems. And that’s close enough for me!

Galloping away from the self timer. Why is this the only photo that’s in focus?

It’s clearly not perfect and I intend to wear it only in dimly lit locations, but I am also pretty damn proud of myself and my little needle and thread.

Me and my duct tape dressform with the next experiment.