Theater's Spooktacular Costumes, Props on Sale

You've always wanted to quote Shakespeare before shouting "trick or treat."

Or maybe your basketball team is planning to attend a Halloween party in matching outfits, such as the soldiers of Fortinbras, who appear at the end of "Hamlet."

Were you so inspired by Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew," performed at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey this summer, that you want to dress just like her?

If so, you're in luck.

Those costumes—and more—will be on sale Saturday at the Madison theater company's annual costume and prop sale.

Spokesman Rick Engler said the group hopes to raise $5,000 from the sale, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre on the Drew University campus.

The money will help fund its educational programs, including discount tickets for students to main-stage productions, a touring group that performs at schools throughout the state, teaching artists who help students produce plays in their classrooms and efforts to prepare educators to teach Shakespeare.

Admission to the sale is free. Items range from 50 cents to a few hundred dollars.

Engler and artistic associate Kate Ivins pointed out that the costumes for sale are unique because they were hand-made specifically for Shakespeare Theatre productions.

The sale is expected to attract 200 to 300 people, with many lining up to be the first in at 10 a.m.

Among customers in past years were community theaters, high school drama departments, and individuals looking for Halloween costumes.

Books, handmade props such as shields, and vintage clothes and hats will be sold along with costumes, which will be divided in categories, such as "medieval fantasy" and "zombies, ghosts and witches."

Sorting through the sale items Wednesday, Engler and Ivins found a medieval men's velvet hand-painted robe, priced at $100, and a three-piece purple women's outfit, with skirt, jacket and hand-made bustle, listed at $200. There was a sea monster costume from "The Tempest" for $60, Kate's dress from "Shrew," three shirts worn by fairies in the touring production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and six blue doublets for Fortinbras' army, donated by the New York Shakespeare Festival.

Inside some of the costumes were labels listing the play they were used in and the actor who wore them.

At the sale last year, Madison resident Ken Wasik bought an outfit of King Henry VIII that he wore as a Halloween costume, stuffed with a few pillows, and a huge top half of a polar bear from "A Winter's Tale" that he used to decorate his front doorway. Both purchases "went over big" and he plans to be at the sale this weekend. "I think it's a good cause, to support the theater," he added.

Ivins' father, Ben, has attended the sale twice, buying a latex pig head and a belly dancer's top among other items. He said his nephews and nieces wore the pig head to trick or treat and he wore the top at a costume party.

His sister bought a set of fake books made of cardboard as a gag gift for a friend.

In addition to the festive atmosphere, the sale offers "such a hodgepodge of things that you wouldn't see" anywhere else in one place, he added.