Notes from the Costume Shop
To answer a question often asked—yes, our astonishing, talented, eager-to-learn student costume crew actually designs and constructs the costumes for our productions.
Many of our students have never sewn before. Often within minutes they are earnestly working through the challenges of sewing machines, fabric study, draping, research, character analysis, and towards realized costumes. These incredible students learn to re-imagine an existing piece into something completely new, construct brand new designs by draping right onto a dress form, and take on costume craft by making amazing masks! THEN they help with hair and makeup design, and choreograph all the costume fast changes backstage! It’s a wonder to see!
We took particular pleasure in using much of our accumulated stock (a diplomatic way to refer to our totally overwhelming but wonderful stash of materials and garments in the costume shop). All the generous donations from you, our patrons and parents of fabrics, drapes, sewing machines, sergers, and great grandma’s sewing notions have come into play in fabulous ways for this show. We have cut up and repurposed some of those unfortunate but valuable brides and bridesmaid gowns, old prom dresses and various cast off treasures, all thanks to you!
Our production of Romeo and Juliet was a joy to design, and we love messing with design concepts for Shakespeare. During our initial brainstorming conversations for Romeo and Juliet, Joel Smith, our director said “What if we do this show with no particular era or country? And what if all the costumes were white or very light? And maybe we could place or project pertinent words for each character on the costumes…”?
Poof! Imagination exploded, and off we went.
Thank you to my incredibly talented colleagues: Joel Smith, whose vision and passion for excellence is always an inspiration and an absolute joy, Chris Leonard for composing an ethereal and sensitive sound tract, Laura Lenczycki for your calm and dependable collaboration, Sierra LaRue for your choreography (and your patience with our headpieces!), and all parents and others who helped bring this production into reality. Thank you to my husband Don, and my family for your loving support through long hours, and my endless chatter about daily events and pride in our delightful students.
We hope you enjoy the show…and afterwards, please look for our costume students in their black aprons and let them know your appreciation. They deserve all the praise in the world!
Kari Armstrong
Costume Director
