Local schools step up to help New Kensington-Arnold drama club when rental costumes aren’t delivered

NEW KENSINGTON, Pa. — Thirty-two students in the New Kensington-Arnold School District will take the stage next week for the annual springtime musical “The Addams Family.”

This year, for the first time, Valley Junior-Senior High School decided to rent costumes for the performers. It was supposed to be a helpful measure, but has proven to be anything but.

With only one week until these New Kensington-Arnold High School performers hit the stage the ensemble of “The Addams Family” and their drama sponsor, Brian Krugle have found themselves in quite a predicament. The costumes never showed up.

“I’ve never thought in a million years that that was going to be the situation that we were in,” Brian Krugle said

In January, Krugle, who has led the program for 16 years, says he started looking for costumes for their upcoming show. Krugle says he started talking to a costume rental company called “The Staging Workshop” that promised to provide these costumes for close to $8,000.

“They took full payment Feb. 29 and everything was supposed to be delivered here Monday, April 1 and nothing has shown up,” Krugle said.

Krugle says a representative from “The Staging Workshop” messaged him via Facebook on Easter saying they were having issues with their email and that they’d have tracking information Monday. He didn’t hear anything until Tuesday morning when he received a message from the company taking full accountability for the delay and once again promised to send the costumes.

“He said, ‘Yeah we’re pulling everything. We’ll have the costumes, the pictures and the tracking number for you by the end of the day today,’ and that was the last they’ve returned any communication.  We’ve been calling non-stop trying to get them on Facebook and nothing,” Krugle said.

Channel 11 tried reaching out on social media, emailing and calling “The Staging Workshop” for comment but did not hear back. Currently, the website for “The Staging Workshop” appears to not be working.

Krugle said, “They shouldn’t be allowed to do this to any other school or community theatre arts, group anywhere, they shouldn’t have to go through this.”

Krugle says he decided to reach out to other local schools to see if they may have costumes for the Addams family that the performers could borrow for next Thursday.

“Several schools Plum, Hempfield, Norwin, Highlands has stepped up,” Krugle explained.

With their generosity, Krugle says the show most definitely will go on - and he’s hoping the community packs the seats.

Krugle filed a police report with the new Kensington police and also reached out to the Attorney General’s office in an effort to recoup the money.

You can reserve tickets at: http://tickets.vhsdrama.org. Tickets will also be available at the box office each night of the show.

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