Costumes: Mr. White

In developing the Jesus character, I wanted to give him a clean appearance, but not at the cost of creating an over-bearing, over-used icon. I came up with a basic white or off-white costume with a white or cream ribbed tank top (horizontal lines) and white or cream painter or cargo pants. Finish it off with a simple set of running shoes, and that's my basic costume.

So that looked way too plain, so I went further and decided that he would have color components from each of the other characters in his costume. The typical device of rainbow suspenders first crossed my mind, but it just screamed Mork. I also was concerned that if he was too light in color, that in performing the various scenes and the level of movement I'm anticipating, that he will get progressively dirtier through the course of the show, and that was not sending the right message: "Jesus' clean white exterior is getting dirtier as the show progresses." But then, since he's wearing painters' pants, I realised I could get some mileage out of that angle, so I tried a version with lots of paint smears on them, as though he's been going from town to town "getting his hands dirty" by interacting with different shapes and colors of people, and it's literally stuck to him. Here is a scan...



And when I looked at I was afraid it would come off as some geeky mid-1980's parachute pant print thing, but if it is done deliberately to match the creases of where a real painter might be tempted to wipe his hands or brush, it'll be okay.

And maybe I'll add a white or cream sweater or something later. Other characters seem to have layers of clothing they'll be stripping off. Maybe he should as well...

I dunno, more to come later...

- Sean