Out with the Old

Out+with+the+Old

Thespian Society cleans out closet for fundraiser

The Thespian Society will be clearing out their closets on Oct. 12 in the Black Box and throughout the fine arts hallway. The cleanout is a fundraiser sale for the theatre department, as they are letting go of years worth of costumes for under 10 dollars each.

A variety of items are being sold, shoppers can find costumes for Halloween, but also streetwear, and even quite a bit of formal wear.

When looking at costumes, generally the pricing starts at 20 dollars, but even that is being a bit generous when the average price at the local Party City would be 40-50 dollars, five times the price of the costume sale.

Another local Halloween store would include Party Depot, which is very cheap in price, but the items it contains are lower quality than Party City, which, in all honesty, is not that hard to beat at all. There is a store, Spencer Spirit Holdings, or “Spirits” in the Sterling area, but Spirits has the same price range as Party City.

While there is online shopping, a big part of the problem with sites like Amazon is the wait for shipping, shoppers could miss Halloween and still not know if a costume will fit.

Thrifting is also an option, but the thrift stores in Sterling -yes, even the famed Plato’s Closet- lack costumes, and buying from the costume sale would also support the theatre department, allowing for more enjoyable productions in the future.

The case for the costume sale would be that cheap quality is bypassed; everything is professional quality, as it has to survive at least several shows and movement ranging from battle sequences to sprinting onto stage. Costumes have to look good and stay flawless throughout all of that, as there is never time to fix it; even Spirits has a separate category labeled “Theatrical Quality Costumes” with a price tag around 70 dollars at best, but often between 100-200 dollars, with limited options.

The theatre closet has not been cleaned out in at least five years, maybe longer.

“I have theatre fifth block then I have sixth block core, the first core I stayed in my class, but every day since then I’ve been coming to the Black Box, checking in with Ms. Fox, [and Jacob Campero and I get] the key to go into the costume closet and start throwing stuff away and bagging stuff to sell and sorting into keep,” said Thespian Society Treasurer junior Rebecca Lipshultz.

Working every other day for hours, Lipshultz and Thespian Society Clerk senior Jacob Campero toil through the clothes, sorting and handpicking what will be available, and what is not a high enough standard to sell or to keep. The theater department plans to use the money for their productions.

“We kind of are in charge of our own funds and last year we didn’t really do enough fundraising as far as I’m concerned. We only did three or four total fundraisers as opposed to the 10 or 12 we should have done,” said Lipshultz. “Wizard of Oz did bring us in a lot of money, but we had to spend it this year to pay for rights for our shows, so we don’t have too much money to put on shows. We’re hoping that this costume sale will really help us not only clean out our stock but make some money in the process.”