It’s all his fault, all of this was his fault. I haven’t slept in days, I have horrible grades in my classes. There are so many hot glue burns and layers of super glue on my hands, I can’t even feel the needle pricks anymore. If he would just make up his mind, I wouldn’t be sprinting through the theater right now. I wouldn’t be terrifying the freshman who were scuttling out of my way in my mad dash to fix this stupid problem for the sixth time. That widow's peaked,  cargo pants wearing, indecisive, unappreciative son-of-a…

The descent into madness began one hour earlier…
    “Lauryn, come here for a second,” my director, Justin Horn, called out to me from the edge of the stage, where he was setting the actors up to practice a scene. The pockets of his cargo pants were clearly filled with batteries, ready to fling at any actor who dared to forget their lines. Today was going to be a rough day for all of us. I was already pulling out my design book as I walked over, a sinking feeling in my chest that I would be making yet another change to Diana’s design.

“Yes, Mr. Horn?”

“It’s Diana’s costume, she still isn’t right. She’s supposed to be seductive, you know? Getting all the men in the show and using them to get what she wants… the look just isn’t there yet. You need to fix it before the run.”

“Okay, yeah. I can do that. Totally.. I’m gonna go work on that.”

Clutching my book in an attempt to keep my rage at bay, I wandered off in a daze to sit in the pile of extra fabric and costume odds and ends I’d made a nest out of in a corner of the theater. Pulling Diana’s costume off the rack to lay it out before me once again, thinking,  ‘this is fine, I’m fine’. I had already fixed this character countless times, and redesigned the whole thing five different ways, but this was fine. All I had to do was make Lily, the actress playing Diana who naturally possessed very nicely proportioned B cup breasts, to look like Xandra, another actress in the show playing Maggie who possessed natural G cup breasts. Easy peasy.

For a full fifty minute class period, I sat in isolation in my nest of costume scraps, pouring over my design book to try to fix the situation. Taking the blouse details from design number two and maybe applying them to the undershirt of design number five… no, that looks terrible. The skirt cut of three with the blouse of five? No, the colors are off, she would clash with the other women on stage! I looked through every page of my design book, comparing the designs of the female characters of the show to see how I could make Diana look more alluring compared to them. Every color combination, pattern matching or mismatching, cuts of garments compared to others. I was coming up with absolutely nothing. Her outfit was already finished! It was period accurate for 1946 and I couldn’t just slap on a contemporary neckline!

‘I wouldn’t be having this issue if Mr. Horn had considered the character when he was casting,’ I ranted in my mind as I slowly fell farther into insanity over the sexiness of a fictional character. ‘He could have realized that our actresses have very different builds and cast the girl with the huge boobs for the role of a sexualized woman if that’s what he wants me to give him!’

Huge boobs. That’s what I needed. Diana just needed bigger boobs, and then the existing blouse would look more sexy because of the cleavage and the silhouette! Pulling a pen from the collection of writing and sewing tools residing in my bun, I quickly sketched up design number six with the addition of a chest Jessica Rabbit would be envious of.

With my mental breakdown well underway, I gathered my design book, my backpack, and my fanny pack full of costume designer supplies. The actors and technicians were starting to head for the dressing rooms to prepare for the run. I sprinted back into the women’s dressing room, scaring some freshman run crew members who dared to be in my path. “Boys, get the hell out,” I yelled as I pushed the door to the women’s dressing room open, scaring the crap out of the cast and crew who were milling around inside, waiting for me. The guys all hurried out with their tails between their legs, not wanting to face the wrath of a designer who had been awake for two days straight.

Once they were all out, I turned my sights on the girls in the room. My design book was slammed down on the counter, showing them the plan I was attempting to execute.

“Ladies… give me your bras.”

I’m sure the crazed look in my eye prompted everyone to action, and I was soon holding the bras of all seven women in the room, including my own. Lily was put into her skirt and heels by one of the girls on my costume crew while I set to work on the bras. All different sizes, different colors, different styles. Wearing eight bras may have been uncomfortable for her, but it did the job and her cleavage was truly mesmerizing once her blouse was on. Everything was working fine, this was a great idea. Excellent, one of my best. I wasn’t crazy.

After getting the rest of the cast into their costumes, and watching the poor boys have minor heart attacks as Lily hurried to get her hair done, I sent them all to places and went to get my clothing racks set up for the quick changes during the show.

My fanny pack in place, pens and seam rippers sticking haphazardly out of my hair, I was ready for the show. The run went off without too many complications, but maybe that was just my deteriorating mental state trying to assure me that everything was okay. We got David into his tuxedo just in time, and there were only minor complications with Matt’s faux mustache.

After the run, when the actors had been sent to get out of costume so the tech designers could get their notes from the run, I sat down in the circle along with the others. Blissfully unaware of the confused looks of my friends. I pulled my design book out and opened up to my page of notes, ready for our meeting.

“So,” I said with a crazed smile, looking to my mildly horrified and embarrassed director, “did Diana’s boobs look right this time?”