Dressmaking?!

I have been very busy buying fabric, raiding charity shops and sewing, but don't have a quilt block to show for it. Can you believe I've been dressmaking? It's not been outfits for myself, but costumes for a play. Our local group are taking a play up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. This festival lasts for the month of August in Edinburgh (Scotland) and hosts 1,000 shows a day, with 2,098 different shows over the whole month. Ours will be a production of 'Our Country's Good' by Timberlake Wertenburger, and is about convicts in Australia in 1789. We are hiring the officers's uniforms, but somehow I found myself volunteering to take charge of the other costumes.

After some research, I have decided that full skirts with petticoats underneath, and then bodices with blouses underneath will be accurate enough. Here is the first bodice I made - to fit myself. This is the front view,

and here is the back. I managed to get one of those eyelet tools, and am quite pleased with the way they've turned out.

Here are Becky's bodice complete with tailor's tacks (I never thought I'd be glad to know how to do those when we did them at school!), Jackie's top waiting to be sorted out and Sally's bodice cut out and ready to go.

Nicky's bodice has to be able to be ripped open at the back on stage, to reveal the scars she received when she was flogged. Any ideas how to achieve that?