Want to dress up and be a star for a few minutes? Well, you can with a visit to the Old Globe wardrobe department — at least until April 14. Stage time, too, but no script. Through the San Diego History Center’s interactive exhibition “Dressing the Part: Costume Design at the Old Globe,” visitors can tour backstage to observe the complex costume design process. There are dozens of original costumes from past Old Globe productions. Dressing the Part is a unique collaborative exhibition between two prominent Balboa Park institutions. The exhibition incorporates a number of multimedia and interactive components of costume design. Using videos, sketches and mockups, the exhibition traces the creation of a wedding dress — from concept to fitting to final product — for the character of Bianca in last summer’s production of “The Taming of the Shrew.” Another display reveals how an actor’s appearance is transformed through the magic of costume and makeup and how that appearance helps the actor get in character. Visitors are given the opportunity to experience this for themselves as they try on authentic costumes from the productions of “The Taming of the Shrew,” “King Lear” and “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” Then, they can step on a small stage as house lights dim and stage lights engage for a photo opportunity. Playtime at Museum of Man Life’s a big game. Well, it is if you’re around the Museum of Man these days. Visitors can become their own game piece as they play their way through displays of games from around the world. Included are old classics, contemporary, rare and historic games drawn in part from a remarkable private collection of more than 1,400 games. Young people today may think a game is something you play with a motion controller or computer keyboard. But for thousands of years, people invented fun ways to pass the time with cards, stones, sticks, boards and tiles. The Museum’s “Counter Cultures: The Secret Lives of Games” explores the evolution of many well-known games still played today, like “Go,” “Parcheesi,” “Dominos” and “Chutes and Ladders.” The exhibition also considers the important roles games played in the cultures that created them, from pallanguli, a centuries-old counting game played by Tamil women in South India, to “Pirate and Traveler,” a popular educational game in the mid-20th century that taught U.S. schoolchildren geography. The exhibition is rife with facts about games, such as the one that explains that “Chinese Checkers” was invented in Germany as “Stern-Halma” in 1892. American marketers in the 1930s changed the name to make it sound more exotic. Movie prop on display The Lockheed Vega 5B used in the movie “Amelia,” starring Academy Award-winning actress Hilary Swank, has now joined the San Diego Air & Space Museum’s permanent collection. The plane was created as a prop for the film and was donated to the museum by Avalon Pictures. Amelia Earhart flew a Lockheed Vega 5B on many historic occasions including the 1929 first Women’s Cross-Country Air Race, first female solo flight across the Atlantic, first female solo flight across the United States, and also set several women’s speed and distance records. The Vega 5B was known as a racing and record-setting aircraft and established a standard for many other transport aircraft.








