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  • 1.  Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-09-2017 08:46
    I am at a new school and we are doing Bye Bye Birdie.  I am looking for telephones with long, long cords.  Also looking for any costumes (Shriner hats) or set pieces for rental or purchase.  I am in the Wisconsin area and have been teaching for 33 years - I know that this site is awesome.  Hope someone can help. 

    David

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    David Valdes
    Director of Theatre
    Aventura FL
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  • 2.  RE: Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-10-2017 16:58
    When I directed it about ten years ago, I bought phones on eBay and spray painted them. I'd first used them for "Call Back in the Morning" in Little Shop - then used them again and more the following year. Were I still at the school, I'd have sent them to you. Hopefully someone else has some around.

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    Jonathan Jones
    New York NY
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  • 3.  RE: Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-10-2017 19:43
    Phones- get these (Amazon- Native Union Pop Retro Phone) and clip the cord to the back of the kids' skirts or pants with bulldog clips. That way the kids can dance with the phones and it creates a great look! Shriner hats are very cheap from The Costumer.





  • 4.  RE: Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-15-2017 18:29
      |   view attached
    When we did the show in 2010, I was able to find the receivers, but not entire phones, for a reasonable amount online.  I bought a reproduction Princess phone in pink for Kim, and I already had phones for the office, and house.  I used an old black wall phone for the pay phone. 

    I had already decided to use rehearsal blocks for the telephone song, so I bought curly cords at Dollar Tree, and stapled the empty end inside the hand hole of each box.  It worked great.  I'm attaching a picture.

    We set the show in 1958, when Elvis went into the Army, because the costumes are more fun during that time.   
    One super cool thing we discovered that made costuming easy was that the awful 60" double knit that people cleaning out their sewing rooms had given us for years made fabulous circle skirts.  No sewing a circular hem, glory hallelujah!

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    C. J. Breland
    Asheville High School
    Asheville NC
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  • 5.  RE: Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-16-2017 11:17
    We got real phones for the individual calls, but for "Telephone Hour" we used multiple colors of curling ribbon for the cords.

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    Kristin Hall
    Drama Director
    Lincoln Public Schools
    Arlington MA
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  • 6.  RE: Bye Bye Birdie

    Posted 11-20-2017 17:41
    We did Birdie last <g class="gr_ gr_51 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="51" data-gr-id="51">year,</g> and didn't use cords.  I ordered 2 or three cheap phones on Amazon ($10.00 or less) and sent out an all-call via <g class="gr_ gr_161 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace" id="161" data-gr-id="161">e-mail for</g> old phones people had in their attics.  (I have them all in a prop box!  I'd lend them to you, but I'm from Kansas)

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    Janette Clark
    Drama Teacher
    Minneapolis KS
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