Dressed for success: Costume shop creations add depth, beauty to each production

Faith Brown, Costume Shop Manager

The early days of building costumes for Tuacahn’s summer productions is a little bit like a treasure hunt.

Armed with the costume designer’s ideas and illustrations, Faith Brown, costume shop manager, and others on her team, comb through stores, flea markets, fabric samples and online offerings, searching for the perfect piece of cloth. Finding just the right color and texture is imperative as they work to create the wearable art that will soon drape the actors’ bodies and bring these stories to life.

When they finally find the perfect piece, Brown says it’s difficult to describe the elation.

“You just hold onto it for dear life until you’ve paid for it so you don’t lose it,” Brown says with a laugh.

The treasure hunt is just one part of the challenge of taking the costume designers’ vision and turning it into costumes that will change the actors into everything from over-the-top candy-obsessed kids to jungle-dwelling apes and more. It’s a world Brown takes great pleasure in creating, and now, managing as the Tuacahn costume shop supervisor.

Jonathan Wagner as Willy Wonka, costume designed by Ryan Moller

Brown started her work with Tuacahn back in 2018 as a firsthand, a seasonal position in the costume department. She has since worked her way up to manager, but she started dabbling in the sewing world long before she came to Tuacahn.

“I learned to sew when I was 8 or 9 years old,” Brown says. “One of my first projects was a skirt and blouse with really drapey sleeves because it was the ‘90s.”

She entered the professional world of costumes in 2013 and continues to enjoy this artform because of the interactions she has not only with the design process, but with the actors.

“You really get to help the actors create a character,” Brown says. “That’s a huge difference in costumes and some of the other areas of tech.”

Brown says costume fitting days are always “a blast” because the actors are so excited to see the pieces they’ll be wearing for the show, and Brown and her team are so excited to see them in action on the person who will be wearing them.

“We usually have them do some of the movements from the show to make sure everything is working,” Brown says. “For example, we want the actors playing apes to do some of their ape antics in the costume to make sure they’re not going to trip on the fringe, or to give us an idea of what it will look like when they’re in a handstand.”

This season, in addition to the fringy fur-like movement of the apes’ costumes in Tarzan, Brown says she has thoroughly enjoyed creating just the right look for many of the characters in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“We were searching for a very specific fabric to create the costume for Augustus Gloop,” Brown says, pointing out one of this year’s costume “treasure hunt” moments. “We probably went into 20 different stores to find what we wanted.”

With so many different costumes in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Brown says scenes such as the one featuring “Pure Imagination” is going to be nothing short of spectacular.

“That’s one of the huge moments in the show,” Brown says. “The designer, Ryan Moller, based each child’s look on a type of candy, so they are all very unique and you can tell them all apart on stage.”

A large portion of the costumes in each of Tuacahn’s productions are made in-house by a team of about 15 people in two months’ time. However, there are some pieces they contract out to other costume shops, and some they purchase to be used as-is or to alter to fit a specific need.

Ashley Moniz as Jane, costume designed by Bradley Lock

“It’s all about labor and time,” Brown says. “We are generally making the specialty items, but if we need an actor to wear a pair of jeans, we will just buy those rather than using time and resources to make our own.”

Every year brings unique highlights and challenges in terms of creating costumes. For example, everyone likely remembers the intricate, and unbelievably beautiful gold Belle dress in the 2021 rendition of Beauty and the Beast. This year, Brown says the iconic Tarzan look, for example, doesn’t require the same level of intricacy, but there are other things costumers must keep in mind.

“Tarzan is wearing a lot less,” Brown says, laughing as she refers to Tarzan’s iconic loin cloth. “But he does have to fly which means his costume has to look good with the flying harness underneath. It might not be as impressive as the gold dress, but there are some technical aspects.”

Additionally, there are technical aspects to some costumes that the audience isn’t supposed to notice, but that makes a big difference for the actors. One such hidden element is something called “quick riggings.”

“This is for people who have to make quick costume changes, literally going from one costume to another in a matter of seconds,” Brown says.

Greyson Nielson as Young Tarzan, costume designed by Bradley Lock and Rendell DeBose as Terk, costume designed by Emily Brauniger

In order to speed the process, some costumes are built as a one-piece jumpsuit — pants, shirt and vest that appear to be separate items but can be pulled on and off all at once. Other times, costumes are designed with hidden zippers, snaps or Velcro to assist in the costume transitions.

No matter the costume, Brown and her team are careful to keep even the smallest details in mind.

“Details matter,” Brown says. “Even if not every audience member can see the details, it’s very helpful for the person wearing the costume to know it’s there. Plus, it’s just part of the artistry of what we do. We want to make it as awesome as we can. There’s a little bit of pride there.”

That pride comes center stage for Brown when she sees the final touches of each costume settling into the spotlight as the season commences.

“It’s exciting to see a show and see your work up on stage,” Brown says. “Seeing it moving and the actors living in it, it’s a really cool moment.”

Brown says as the costume manager she takes equal pride in seeing the work of her team members on stage too.

“It’s wonderful to celebrate the success of the show together,” she says.

Come celebrate this summer’s Broadway season at Tuacahn with Tarzan, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. To purchase tickets, log onto www.tuacahn.org or call 435-652-3300.