The theater department's costume shop is a Halloween fantasy, overflowing with gaudy jewelry and wacky accessories. In the Kantner Hall basement, designers work for months to make the actors shine when the curtain goes up.
As shows are chosen every winter for the year ahead, so are the accompanying design teams, typically composed of graduate students.
As a designer
you are the creator said Julia Ferreri, a second-year costume technology graduate student, who is designing the costumes for Reckless one of this fall's main stage performances.
Designers are assigned a crew to help with the production, which is mostly undergraduate students who are required to have costume shop hours for practicum or experience in the field and shops, in order to graduate. Design crews often help one another.
All shows need at least a quarter to complete the job, said Holly Cole, associate professor of costume technology.
The process starts with character drawings before the characters are cast. Costume designers attend auditions and take note of what they can work with and who would best fit the look of the role.
After the show is cast, the drawings are altered to fit the actors better. A costume can bury or bring out a performance, Cole said.
There is no one Hamlet costume because there is no one person playing Hamlet
she said.
Final drawings have the seal of approval from the director, other designers and the student's adviser, and they then become the plan for the rest of the process. The next task is finding materials and costume-shop stock or thrift store gems that realistically fit the budget and capabilities of the show.
Although catalogues and online shopping are convenient, many OU designers travel to bigger cities to find the materials they want, said Dee Boone, a second-year costume technology graduate student who went to New York City during the summer in order to costume A Flea in Her Ear.
Usually almost half the costumes are pulled from the stock, which the theater department has accumulated in past shows or from donations of local residents. The costumes are tweaked and manipulated to morph into a new costume, Cole said.
Depending on the size of the show, the costume designers spend anywhere from $300 to $3,000 on each show, which comes out of their production budget from the theater department.
The designers regularly attend rehearsals and work closely with the actors, sharing ideas on what works with each actor's stage movements, Cole said.
The design team is also in charge of hair, makeup and accessories for the performers.
The wardrobe crew, which is in charge of making sure everything is on correctly before the actors take the stage, spends tech week, the week before the show, choreographing how to change actors in and out of their costumes. Some changes must take place in a matter of 30 seconds, so if a shirt takes too long to button or shoes have to come off to change pants, changes must be made to quicken the process, said Cole.
In the few nights before the performance, a quarter's worth of hard work comes together. Everything has to be perfected - and there is a lot to perfect, Cole said. Finished products can be witnessed firsthand in Reckless at the Forum Theater in the Radio and Television Arts Building Oct. 12 to 15 and 19 to 22, and A Flea in Her Ear can be seen Nov. 2 to Nov. 5 and Nov. 9 Nov. 12 at the Elizabeth Evans Baker Theater in Kantner Hall.
17
Archives
Cicely Gilbert
20051013821midsize.jpg
Second year graduate student Dee Boone (left), third year graduate student Kyla Kazuschyk and third year graduate student Myron Elliott (right) fit a costume on junior Andy Lutz for the part of Camille in the upcoming play A Flea in Her Ear.
Team readies performers' attire for coming attractions
