Production Tips for
The Baloney, the Pickle, the Zombies, and Other Things I Hide From My Mother

Requires a couple very strong actors, some creative costuming (we used red/pink foam pieces for the baloney - attached together with Velcro strips - and an actual pickle costume for Vlad), and a somewhat extensive set, so have a good-sized crew to help you. Keep the pace fast and energy high and it'll be great.

I built the baloney costume out of foam packing material and duct tape. It was easy and flexible, and most of all cheap.

The costumes for the baloney and pickle were challenging. We finally settled on pink and green body suits and they worked well for this performance. I was concerned about the death of the police officer and how the audience would react. So I did my best to make the officer as unlikeable as possible and his death as silly and ridiculous as possible. When Trevor cuts into the pickle behind the kitchen island (counter), we used green slime purchased from a store to toss out and land on the floor. It gave Meyer a lot of physical comedy when I had Trevor give him a paper towel and motioned Meyer to clean it up. I had Meyer end up putting into the fridge and was pleasantly surprised when the slime started to ooze out from the fridge. Speaking of the fridge, a real fridge takes up a lot of space so I went to the local appliance store and asked if they had an old fridge door I could use. They were very generous and said to help myself to anything I could use in their dumpster. I found an old fridge and took the door and all the hinging hardware. I made a simple frame, painted it white and attached the door and it worked great.