Log vs Car and a Wedding

In the fall of 2009, following my second season at Lees-McRae Summer Theatre, I started grad school. I knew that grad school wasn’t going to be easy but my troubles started before classes even began.

My wonderful parents and sisters helped me pack up my car and both of my parents cars to move me into my new apartment. Caravan style we headed off to Chapel Hill. I led the group since I knew where we were going. Suddenly in the middle of I-40 in Greensboro, NC a log appeared in the middle of the road. I’m sure that it probably didn’t just appear like magic but, since I was behind a large truck that just drove right over it, the log may has well have appeared magically. And with no time to avoid it, I ran into it.

Yes, I ran into a log. Don’t believe it? Neither could I. Who expects a log in the middle of the highway? But it happened.

That liquid under the car…that’s transmission fluid. Stupid log took out my transmission. Log vs Car…round 1 goes to the log.

 

It lodged up under my front wheel and stayed there. I didn’t crash or anything, the car was still able to move forward but I did slow down and make my way to the side of the road. My mother immediately got out of her car and started to freak out and blame me. She wasn’t entirely out of order, I did total 2 cars within the first 6 months of getting my license. (Though in my defense the second time wasn’t actually my fault.) She yelled and freaked out while my soon-to- be step dad calmly assessed the situation and I called triple A. While we waited for a tow truck, my step dad explained to my mom that there was no way for me to avoid the log due to said truck and that this could have happened to either one of them had they been the front of the caravan. This calmed my mom down and got her to stop yelling at me about my driving. My step dad actually applauded my handling of the situation by slowing down and pulling over instead of slamming on my breaks or panicking.

So, instead of settling into my new apartment, we dropped off my things and I went back with my parents to wait for my car to be fixed. This took about a week.

The point of all this is that I lost a week. I had given myself a week before grad school to settle in and to make my mother, my sisters, and I dresses for my mom’s wedding to my step dad. Instead of having all that free time, I got to jump right into the swing of things at school while trying to unpack my apartment and make 4 dresses for the wedding.

AHHHHHH!!!!

And what could have been done in a week of days with nothing else to do, took a few weeks. And even that is kind of a miracle with all of my school stuff going on. I still have no idea how I pulled it off.

But on to the dresses. My mom’s wedding dress was a faux wrap dress made from a pink stretch fabric. I somehow managed to convince my mom to wear pink so that I wouldn’t have to. She had come downstairs one morning wearing a pink (she would say salmon) bracelet and was soooo excited. “Wouldn’t this be a great color for the bridesmaid dresses?!” she said. My reply was a sort of awkward pause followed by “Ummm…you know none of us like pink right? Why don’t you wear it!” I managed to convince her that since the color made her so happy then clearly she should wear it and my sisters and I could wear a different color, one we liked.

So she ended up in pink and my sisters and I in various shades of purple. (That decision was made in the fabric store as we realized the challenge of picking one color for 3 different skin tones) My sisters and I wore variations on the same dress. All of the dresses were from commercial patterns. I was on a time crunch after all. Here are all of us at my mom and step dad’s wedding.

Three years later my mom pulled out the wedding dress again to wear to my grad school graduation. It’s a wedding dress that really can be worn again and again.

This isn’t anything that ever went into my portfolio but it is part of my sewing journey and it is a part of my grad school story. BTW, I do not recommend trying to make 4 dresses in the first few weeks of an intensive graduate programs. I was happy to do this for my mother who has done so much for me in my life, but I would have been happier if I could have done it the week before school started.

 

Sew I dance!

After spending some time with my mom at home while she recovered, I headed off to Lees McRae Summer Theatre for my second summer season with them. I had really enjoyed my previous summer despite my early misgivings about it. Also, I still was having difficulty getting my foot in the door other places with my utter lack of connections in the industry. So I returned to a place that I had enjoyed to continue gaining experience and building my resume. Not to mention, I had bills to pay.

Upon arrival I was approached with an unexpected and unusual question for someone in the costume shop. Would I be willing to be in the show? Apparently the guy to play Mr. Mistoffelees in Cats had needed to drop out just prior to everyone’s arrival. They remembered that I was a pretty good dancer and wanted me to step in since it was very short notice to find someone new who could dance the part. I was flattered and kinda really wanted to do it because I not so secretly love Cats. I realize that most people hate this show and I am fairly alone in my love, which is surprising since it did so well on Broadway. Maybe there are just a lot of people in the closet about their love for Cats. Not me. I’m out about it!

But I was there to do costumes. I was no longer in pursuit of a career in the performing arts and I really wanted the portfolio building work of making costumes even though performing in a musical would be a lot of fun. They said they’d work it out. I could do both. Cool. But what about money? They weren’t really paying me enough to be pulling double duty. They offered me extra money while I was rehearsing and performing. Awesome! One last thing…I didn’t have to sing did I? I love to dance and I love to sing…in the shower. Or alone in my house or car. I do not sing in front of other people because I do not sing well. I’m not being modest here. Ask my mom. I can’t sing. I was promised that I could lip sink. Perfect! And that’s how I became Mr. Mistoffelees in Cats the first production of the summer.

I really enjoyed that experience though it was extremely exhausting. I spent most of the morning and afternoon in the costume shop and my evenings in rehearsals. Sometimes I was needed in a morning or afternoon rehearsal and would miss time in the costume shop but my supervisor was really understanding about it. And then when we moved to the stage someone had the bright idea to make me the wardrobe person as well since I was already there. So my evenings extended into the night and early morning as I took the repairs back to my room at night to fix. Not to mention the constant interruptions to my preparations each night having to fix holes and help other people with their various wardrobe needs. This meant that I was one of the first to arrive each night at the theatre because an early start was the only way my makeup and wig got on every night.

That was a bit stressful but I wouldn’t trade the performing part for anything. I had a blast and even signed an autograph one night!

This is the little girl I signed an autograph for. She was also in the show! (Our version of cats involved a few kittens)

Working my Mistoffelees magic.

The whole cast.

The season’s second show was The Secret Garden. Since I wasn’t quite working full time in the shop due to my rehearsal schedule, I only made one garment for this show. I made a dress for one of the ensemble girls. It was made from a commercial pattern with a few design tweaks. Those choices were made by costume designer Katherine Tarkulich. If I remember correctly, the box pleats at the collar and hem were the additions. There may have been more. The dress is made from a poly-satin and flat lined with muslin. Remember that this theatre is in a small town and fabric selection isn’t great short of a 2 hour or more drive. Here’s the dress.

Those ripples down the side front seam aren’t intentional. The bias grew. I didn’t know much about bias at the time so I didn’t know to let the pieces hang for a day or so to let the bias stretch out. Oh well, I do now!

The last show of the summer was Guys and Dolls. For this one I got to make 5 costumes, the outfits that the girls wear for “A Bushel and a Peck”. The blouses and shorts for this are connected and start with commercial patterns that I then moved some lines and altered the pattern to fit my needs. There is then a circle skirt that goes over the shorts and rips away during the number with the aid of velcro. Miss Adelaide’s costume, I draped…mostly. The top portion is draped and the lower portion was merged with a pattern that I had. We just didn’t have a pattern that was close to the way the top portion of her outfit fit, so I started from scratch. Unfortunately there weren’t any of the really good dress forms. We had adjustable dress forms. These are difficult to drape on because there is a gap at center front, but I managed. Here are all of the girls in their “Bushel and Peck” costumes.

 

I thought that these ended up being really cute and they were fun to work on. I had had another great summer in Banner Elk, NC. Next step…grad school!

 

 

My time in Auburn comes to an end.

The dance concert was the last production of the 2008/2009 season that I spent at Auburn University. However, my contract wasn’t quite over. There was a bit of time left and some of that time was spent cleaning and organizing the shop but I also got to do a couple of additional projects. One was a personal project, a vest that I made for myself. The other was a Shakespearean corset.

First the vest. This project was because I wanted to work some more on draping and patterning which I had not gotten to do much of. I grabbed one of the dress forms that was close to my size and some muslin and began to make a vest for myself. The vest was a halter vest that I made without any pattern to guide me. I wanted to do it on my own, no pattern to start from and alter just me, the fabric, and a dress form. I ended up making the vest from the same twill that I used on the tutu yoke and found some cute silver buttons. Here’s how it turned out.

I don’t know that I wore this vest at all. Maybe once or twice. Once I went to grad school and saw the quality of work there and watched as my own improved, I became very self conscious about many of the things I had  previously made. They were good for where I was at the time but I suddenly could see so many things that could be improved upon. And I might have worn some of the things that I had made had I been spending my day with non-sewers but spending my day with a bunch of people who have excellent sewing and patterning skills, I knew that they would see many of the things that I was now noticing in those garments. So I just put them away.

The other project that I worked on, the Shakespearean corset, was a project for my supervisor Tracy.  She had this commercial pattern for the corset and was curious how it would work out when put together. Since we had the time, she had me make it.  It is made from coutil and we used featherlite boning since that is cheaper than steel bones. I had never made this style of corset so it was a new and interesting thing for me to work on. I really liked the way it turned out.

I think that it’s actually a really cute corset. Too bad that this style doesn’t get used as often as others. This is the only time so far in my career that I’ve gotten to make one and it wasn’t even for a production.

A few days before my contract at Auburn was supposed to end, I got a call from my mother. She was very sick and wanted me to come home. Her potassium levels were really low causing her to be very weak and my then 13 year old sisters weren’t being incredibly helpful. Not entirely their fault, they were 13 after all. But my mom needed someone else to come home and help her for a little while. With permission, I made the day of that call my last day and went to my apartment to pack and go home. I had some time before my summer job was supposed to start and spent that time being on hand for my mom. She recovered and I headed off to the mountains of North Carolina for my second season with Lees-McRae Summer Theatre.

A story of a dance concert and a tutu.

My last production at Auburn University was the dance concert. I was really looking forward to this because I was supposed to get to make a romantic tutu for the ballet piece. We needed several and I had been promised at least one. While I got to make several things for the dance concert, unfortunately a tutu was not one of them. But lets skip that for now and move onto what I did make for the show.

First up the tap dance. This dance needed 9 vests made. There were 3 different cotton prints and 3 vests made from each print.  Some time was taken to pattern match but overall these vests went together pretty quickly between myself and the students putting them together. Here they are.

There was also a  modern dance piece that needed some tops for the women. They were cut from a commercial pattern and the fabric is an embroidered and sequined fabric. I don’t remember how many there were but there were several. With the elastic in the high waistline, there were very few alterations needed on these and they were fairly quick to put together. An insert was added in the front to the original pattern for coverage.

And the men in the modern piece also needed some tops. Theirs were made from a stretch fabric. The tops were simple but one of my first experiences with stretch fabric.

Now, about the ballet piece. With the number of things that we were already making and the time it takes to make a tutu, when the request was made a deal was also made. In order for the ballet piece to get tutus the ballet dancers would have to come into the shop and help make them. We just didn’t have enough hands to make all of the tutus that they wanted (I think it was around 10 or so). Once we got into a groove with the assembly of the tutus and all the additional hands to make them all of the tutus were in progress before I realized that there wasn’t one left for me. I was sad and disappointed by this realization. Then I remembered the tailoring. I could do the same again. If I wanted to learn how to make a tutu, I could do it outside of the production.

Tracy told me that the instructions came from tutu.com but that I could make a copy of hers. I went to the local fabric store and bought some inexpensive tulle and some fabric for the yoke, I chose a cotton twill. For some reason I was feeling a little goth or punk or something at the time and chose black and blue for my tutu. Later I would wear it as a goth ballerina for halloween.

As with the tailored jacket, I came in during my off hours to work on the tutu and asked Tracy my questions when I ran into things that I was unsure of. Mostly making a tutu is a lot of math to figure out the pattern for the yoke and how long and full each of the layers need to be. They it’s just a matter of wrestling the tulle while you put it under the sewing machine.

And that’s how I got to make my tutu anyway and learn how one goes together. It was fun and when I was done I had a tutu of my very own!

And here’s that halloween.

I learned a lot of things at Auburn University and I’m not quite done with that portion of the story but the biggest lesson was probably that if I wanted to learn something, whatever it was, and it wasn’t being taught to me I could learn it myself or seek it out. I taught myself to tailor. I taught myself to make a tutu. And for the things I still wanted to learn, I had found a grad program that suited me. I didn’t do any of it alone but it did take my initiative to find a way to make it happen.

The America Play and my first mens shirt.

While I was waiting to hear about whether or not I had gotten into grad school, life in the Auburn University costume shop continued with The America Play. This was a small show with only a few cast members onstage. However, there was also a mini carnival set up in the lobby with some of our actors dressed as Abe Lincoln.

I made for one of the onstage actresses a blouse. It’s a cotton print and if I remember correctly it was from a commercial pattern.

I also made some vests and non-tailored jackets for the carnival Lincolns. The jackets were somewhat difficulty because the synthetic fabric did not want to press crisply. The jackets and vests were also from commercial patterns.

Lastly, I made my first men’s shirt for one of the onstage actors. This is more complicated than one might imagine, at least to get it right. I was successful enough for the stage but I have since learned little tricks to make this look nicer. Things like making the undercollar a little smaller than the topcollar. That particular trick makes a huge difference in how the finished collar sits. But here is my first men’s shirt.

I’ve also since learned how to put those front plackets in more neatly, but hey live and learn! And when all is said and done, this isn’t bad for a first mens shirt!

The forgotten post.

I was looking back at some of my posts and I suddenly realized that I missed a project. I have been trying to go in chronological order but this journey began about 10 years ago and it’s not always easy for me to remember what came when or whether or not I forgot something. This blog would be easier in some ways if I was writing about current events and eventually it will get to that point. But for now, I want to chronicle the whole journey and the memories are a little jumbled.

I realized that I included one dress that I made for Winter Formal in undergrad but I went to two Winter Formals. So let me backtrack a bit and return to my second senior year of college for the dress that I made for the formal that year.

At the time I was trying to expand my knowledge as a costume technician. I had begun to collect books for my costume library. A lot of those were mostly books with pictures of pretty dresses. I was picking these books up at book stores and there aren’t exactly a lot of patterning books in the stores but there are a lot of fashion books. At a used bookstore I found a book of fashions from the Academy Awards and fell in love with this dress.

Kate Hudson 2003 Academy Awards

This was the dress! I searched through the patterns that we had at school and found a couple that were similar to different parts of the dress. I used my new beginner patterning skills to mesh the patterns and add some godets to the skirt. I made the dress in two layers, a solid and a lace. I didn’t achieve quite the same silhouette that Kate has but I loved the dress that I ended up with. I chose to do away with the train. I wanted to be able to dance without tripping. Here’s the dress.!

More Corsets!

I’ve mentioned before that I love corsets. Well for Into the Woods I got to make 3! One for each of Cinderella’s stepsisters and the stepmother. I was so excited! These corsets also went together differently than the last one that I made so that too was exciting because I always like to learn something new. I still worked on the production as a whole in my usual supervisory capacity but these corsets were my own special project.

These corsets are cut from commercial patterns though they are constructed completely different than the instructions.. They are double layer coutil with a wide piece of twill stitched into the waist for extra stability there. Since the coutil is doubled I was able to put the seams in between the layers so that they finished nicely. The layers are stitched in the ditch on each seam to keep them together.

Setting up one layer of the corset with the twill tape before attaching the second corset layer.

Using the double layers also meant that I didn’t need bone casings. I just stitched channels through the coutil for the bones. We used featherweight boning which is the plastic boning that comes on a roll because this show is a musical with singing and dancing. We wanted to provide some shape and structure without inhibiting their ability to move and breathe.

The two layers of coutil stitched together with bones added..

The costume designer, Tracy Oleincik, didn’t want to see the bone channel stitching on the outside of the corsets so the satin covers were made separately and then stitched onto the coutil. The seamlines are emphasized with contrasting ribbon stitched over them. The top and bottom edges are bias bound in the contrast color.

The third corset didn’t fit any of the dress forms very well. The pouches that you see on the backs of the corsets were added for mic packs. The girls are in just their undergarments for one scene and there isn’t a good way to put a mic pack under a corset so we made matching pouches for them.

Here are (from left to right) Mallory Hammond as the stepmother and Mallory Porter and Kylee Wofford as the stepstisters (with Elizabeth Ard as Cinderella).

And for fun, here they are in their ballgowns with the corsets underneath.

Determined to Tailor

The incident with the jacket for Schmendiman in Picasso at the Lapin Agile really got to me. It was embarassing and frustrating to have a project taken away from me. It aggravated me to not know how to do something even though I knew this was an unreasonable feeling. I was still starting out.  I couldn’t possibly know how to do everything. But logic didn’t have much to do with it. I was bothered and I set out to fix it.

There wasn’t any time during the workday to learn tailoring as part of my internship but I had plenty of time after work and on the weekends. I decided to undertake a personal project and learn to tailor. I went online and found a tailoring book and went to the store and purchased a Vogue jacket pattern. The intention was to learn as much as possible from the book but I did ask Tracy, my boss, if she would be willing to help me along the way if I ran into things that weren’t clear or with things that could use an extra hand like fitting the jacket. She agreed and started by helping me figure out what supplies I needed to buy and where to get it. In the Auburn – Opelika area there aren’t a lot of fabric buying options and JoAnn Fabrics and WalMart don’t exactly carry things like hymo and tailor’s tape.

After gathering the necessary supplies, I began with a muslin mock up. I wanted to make any necessary alterations before I cut into nice fabric and started all of the hand stitching. Tracy helped me fit the mock up and the alterations were minimal. One thing that I should mention is that I made the mock up a size smaller than my measurements put me on the pattern. I find that most commercial patterns end up too big and that I come a lot closer to fitting if I make the next size down.

Once I had the alterations to the pattern made, it was time to start constructing the jacket. I cut it out and followed the steps in the book. I learned to pad stitch from the book and spent a lot of hours using that new skill on the collar and lapels.

I also made a double welt pocket with a flap which I think may have been my first one. If not the first, it was one of the first and I have since learned tricks to make them turn out even better. And it would have helped me in so many ways had I chosen a wool fabric for my jacket. But this is a pretty good early attempt!

If you’re learning to tailor for the first time, choose wool! I didn’t know all of the wonderful qualities of wool at the time but it is the easiest fabric to tailor with because it shrinks and shapes. It also presses really crisp and smooth. The synthetic satin that I chose did not.

I put a lot of evening hours into this jacket. I was absolutely determined to learn this new skill. When I needed her, Tracy was there to help and answer my questions. I finished the jacket one night when there was a dress rehearsal. I went down to the dressing room to show my students/friends the finished product. It was a success! Everyone loved it. Here it is on a dress form.

It fits me a bit better but I don’t have a picture of me wearing it. I have very few occasions to wear suit jackets so I think I’ve only worn it once or twice. But it wasn’t so much about having something to wear. It was about learning something new so that I wasn’t put in that situation again where I lost the opportunity to make something because I didn’t know any tailoring.

I still wouldn’t call myself a tailor even though I am far better at it now than I was at the first attempt. Despite my determination to learn the skill I never acquired a true interest or like in it. And I still can’t remember all of the steps and have to have a book next to me whenever I tailor. One thing I’ve learned from working in various shops that have tailors is that tailoring is an art and a skill. You can learn how to do it but those who are really good at it have made an art of it. They don’t need a book. They have a feel for it. They tweak the pattern and the garment here and there and it seems to be intuitive or instinctual. I worry. Do I take it in over here? or there? Does the sleeve need to be longer? shorter? Are the lapels wide enough? And a million other questions. Tailors just do it. And they do it quickly. They don’t worry because they know. It’s amazing to watch and to get to see the finished products up close. It’s not my thing but I am in awe of those who can do it well. There’s as much art in a well tailored jacket as there is in any painting hanging on the walls of a museum.

Supervising Picasso

Next stop on my journey was Auburn University in Auburn Alabama (War Eagle! If you’re a fan). I was out of school and yet sort of back in school working with students who weren’t much younger than I. My position was as the Costume Shop Supervisor Intern. Basically I assigned tasks to students who came to work in the costume shop as part of their lab hours and supervised the tasks I gave them. This job was an interesting experience for me. Some of it good, some of it not so good. But that’s the way a lot of things are.

I had to learn how to prepare work and then manage a juggling act of supervision and getting things done. My mornings were student free, for me anyway. There was class 3 times a week, i think, in the mornings but my supervisor and the resident costume designer Tracy Oleinick was in charge of that. Mornings were my time to get things done. I used this time to figure out what needed to be done for shows, plan out the tasks the students would do in the afternoon, cut out any projects that the students could put together under supervision, and stitch whatever things were on my plate and beyond student ability. In the afternoons I spent most of my time assigning tasks, answering questions, and forgetting what I had been working on. I would pick something up and five minutes later remember that I had been working on something else before someone had come to me with a questions. Part of my job was also to attend dress rehearsals and take notes so that we could fix things the next day in the shop.

I wasn’t perfect at this job in the beginning. There was definitely a learning curve and I had never done anything like this before. My supervisor was also very particular and we weren’t always on the same page. But I just tried to keep up and fix whatever mistakes I made. I wasn’t always sure that my supervisor liked me but I imagine that many people feel this way when it comes to their bosses. In the end, I’m pretty sure she liked me because she wrote me a recommendation to grad school.

Back to the actual costumes though. Our first production was Picasso at the Lapin Agile. I made a few things for this and worked here and there on others while supervising other projects. One of my entire looks was Schmendiman. Or almost an entire look. He wore a jacket, vest, and jodhpurs. I had the jacket mostly stitched together when Tracy asked me why it wasn’t structured and then realized that I didn’t know how to tailor. Oops. She had simply given me a commercial pattern and asked me to put it together. The pattern instructions didn’t include tailoring and I had never made a tailored anything before. I followed the instructions. Time was short so she took over the jacket and added in hymo and all of the other tailoring elements and made it into a really nice jacket. I wish that there had been more time so that she could have taught me what she was doing but there wasn’t. This experience would prompt me into a personal project, but that’s another post. So I continued with the vest which was also from a commercial pattern and the jodhpurs which were a commercial pattern for a regular pair of pants. We had some aviation jodhpurs in stock and used them as reference to alter the shape of the commercial pattern. Here’s Schmendiman (unfortunately, I do not remember the actor’s name).

I also made the skirt for Suzanne. This skirt went together beautifully at first but proved to be a pain in rehearsals and production. The over skirt is a velvet burnout bagged out with another fabric to create a zigzag hem. The problem is that the velvet kept stretching out and becoming baggy at the bottom. We kept having to take the waistband off and pick up the velvet from the waist to fix it. You can still see some of the sagging in the picture. I think we probably should have let the cut pieces hang for a day or two before stitching it together. Lesson learned. Here’s Kristen Woods, now Kree Woods, as Suzanne.

The last significant thing that I did for this production was to set up and supervise the application of the trim on the Countess’s skirt. I put the skirt on a dress form and pinned the trim in place. This was done on the form instead of flat so that adjustments for aesthetically pleasing placement could be made. Sometimes it’s easier to view such things in 3D instead of flat. The trim was then hand stitched on. I did some of this and had students helping me with it. Here’s Laura Gail Smith as the Countess and a picture of the entire cast so you can see the costumes as a whole since this job for me wasn’t just about one or two costumes but the whole production. Costume design for this production is by Tracy Oleinck.

Also, just a fun fact. Many of the actors onstage, most in fact, are some of the wonderful students who I worked with in the afternoons. These students had some of the best attitudes about learning to sew and doing all of the not so fun tasks that get assigned to those with limited sewing skills in a costume shop. The students that I worked with were one of the “good things” about my job. They also may have sparked my initial interest in teaching, which I hope to do one day.

My own little shop of horrors.

Post graduation took me out to the mountains of North Carolina for my first non-school affiliated job in costumes. I was off to Lees-McRae Summer Theatre in Banner Elk, NC. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. It is a small summer theatre that I had never heard of until I got the job. How did I get the job? Why did I choose to go there?

I got the job through the South Eastern Theatre Conference. This is a regional conference attended mostly by undergraduate students that offers seminars, scholarships, and a job contact service. Attendees registered for the job contact service can enter a room with booths set up by theatre companies all over the country who are looking to hire their seasonal or full time employees and interns. I interviewed with pretty much anyone who was looking to hire someone at my level. It was a somewhat disheartening experience. While my portfolio was looking pretty good for an entry level position, my contacts and experience were not. The only place that I had worked was at my university and it didn’t matter that three of those shows were professional work not academic. The fact that it was still my school blended it in with the academic work. Also, no one knew of my school’s program or my instructor. This business is a small world where everyone knows everyone, or so it seems. People want to know someone that you know and they will hire the person with contacts over the person without. So when it came down to it I only received phone calls for 2 costume positions, one summer and one august through the following may. I took both.

(Admittedly I also interviewed for stage management positions since I had a degree in that as well. I received a few offers in that area but had decided that I really wanted to focus on costuming so turned down those positions in favor of my costume offers.)

When you’re starting out in this industry, or probably any industry, you take what you can get. It’s all experience. Maybe you’re not climbing the ladder in leaps and bounds but one rung at a time still does the trick. And when all was said and done I was glad (and still am) that I chose to accept the job at Lees-McRae. I had a good time and met some really wonderful people.

The costume shop at Lees-McRae took a little getting used to for me. I am a princess. I can admit that. Walking into the shop for the first time, I was tempted to call it quits and go home. The shop was a small building that looked a bit like a cabin. But not a nice pretty log cabin. More like the cabins that we had in a summer camp I went to once (which also made me want to call it quits and go home when I first saw it). Ironic that we were doing Little Shop of Horrors this summer as I was pretty sure I had just walked into my own little shop of horrors. There were cobwebs in many places and I’m arachnophobic. There was no air conditioning (a foreign concept in my world). And the costume stock area definitely had some critters who had called it home in the not too distant past and were possibly still in residence. Scary things for a princess. But I dealt with it. I encountered very few spiders and my coworkers handled the few I did encounter for me and I never saw any critters in stock. And the air conditioning wasn’t the problem that I expected. The mountains of North Carolina remain relatively temperate during the summer. There were a couple of hot days (nothing compared to down the mountain) but we had fans in the shop and in the dorms and it was all manageable.

As for the shows and the work we did three shows that summer. The first was A Chorus Line. There really wasn’t anything to make for this show. Pretty much the performers wear their own leotards and warm ups and the costumes for the final number get rented. The interesting thing about this show was that I got to be in it! I had been interested in taking dance class with the performers as a means of keeping up my abilities and having some means of exercise. The costume shop manager was also a dancer and wanted the same thing. We were allowed to come take class. The show still needed some extras for the opening and we were asked to join the production. Everything was worked out to make it so that we could put in time in the costume shop and also attend the necessary rehearsals. I was so excited! I love to dance and especially to perform and was really happy to be able to do that along side costuming and not have to sacrifice one or the other. There is a video on facebook of me in this show but I have no idea how to share it here. Instead, here’s a picture of the entire cast and crew onstage. I’m in a purple leotard to the right of center, the only proof that I can offer at this time that I did in fact dance in this production.

The next show was Little Shop of Horrors and I returned full time to the costume shop to make a couple of dresses for Audrey. Both dresses are fairly straightforward and made from commercial patterns. The pink dress is made from a cotton with black ribbon trim. The blue dress is made from some sort of (cheap) synthetic and the bolero portion from a cotton, i think (or a dishtowel). Remember that this is a small theatre with limited fabric availability. There was a Wal-Mart nearby with a fabric section but I think the nearest real fabric store was a couple of hours away. Here is Annalise Jensen as Audrey in costumes designed by Michael Hannah.

The season ended with Oklahoma! I made a skirt for Aunt Eller, a jacket and skirt for Laurey, an untailored suit (in a plaid to make your eyes sore) for Ali Hakim, and a dress (that we called the pink monster) also for Laurey. This was my first foray into menswear and I am so grateful to have had a commercial pattern to work from and that there was no tailoring. I did not yet know anything about tailoring as we had always pulled menswear from stock in undergrad. And to this day tailoring is not a strong point of mine. I can do it but not quickly and not without instructions sitting next to me. The big challenge with the suit was matching the plaid and then trying not to go cross eyed looking at that garish pattern for so many hours while sewing it. The pink monster did similar things to my eyes. That’s a lot of pink to look at for a lot of hours. The outer fabric is sheer so there’s more pink underneath it. For someone who doesn’t like pink much, it seemed neverending! The pink monster and the teal jacket and skirt are also from commercial patterns. Aunt Eller’s skirt is just a rectangle gathered onto a waistband if I remember correctly.

Here are Nyra Brannan as Aunt Eller, Galloway Stevens as Ali Hakim, and Christine Deal as Laurey in costumes designed by Michael Hannah.

Overall the summer turned out great. The mountains of NC are beautiful and a wonderful place to spend the summer. I got the opportunity to dance in one of the shows. I added several things to my portfolio. The people that I worked with were some of the nicest that I have ever worked with and one of them would later offer me my first sublet in NYC. I had to get over some princessy things but that too was good for me. It may be a small theatre that no one has really heard of in a town that consists of a private college and just a few blocks of anything else but I would recommend it to anyone who was just starting out. They gave me a chance, a job, and a good summer and that’s what I needed at the time.