The Oracle

Issue date: 10/28/08 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Emily Sjostrom Romeo and Juliet student designer Samantha Kuhn adjusts a work in the costume shop while costume shop supervisor MaryBeth Gagner watches.

Although there were only about four or five people in the costume shop, work was abundant. As one person sewed, another person carefully put together a leather piece to hold a sword and the room is full of cloth and pieces of clothing, not to mention the designs and sketches that cover the walls. The room is organized chaos, brilliant scraps of ideas being sewn together, soon to grace the stage and adorn the student actors of the current production of Romeo and Juliet.

MaryBeth Gagner, the costume shop supervisor, said her favorite thing about working on theater is the collaborative aspect. She said working with a group of people to put together a show is much more satisfying than the world of fashion, the other line of work associated with her skill set.

"You promote yourself [in fashion]," she said. According to her, you don't get to work with other people like you do while working on costumes for a production.

Gagner may supervise, but junior Samantha A. Kuhn is the go-to girl for design on Romeo and Juliet. Kuhn is not just the designer for the current show, but also the shop manager. She said it is important for the students to be in as much creative control as possible. The director usually dictates his ideas, but students are then left to their own devices to design the show.

Kuhn said she wanted all the costumes to reflect the passions that are at the heart of the show, itching to move away from a renaissance portrayal of the show while staying classic. What resulted is what she describes as "very stylized renaissance fashion" based on the director's vision for the show.

Kuhn said she strayed from Gagner's aversion to the fashion world and liked to look at what the trends were. She even put some characters in designer shoes to emphasize the stylized feel.

In the current production, two color sets for the quarreling families will be used, putting the Capulets in "peacock colors"-- blue and purple--and the Montagues in "lion colors" -- orange and yellow. What results, according to Kuhn, is two elegant and noble sets of costumes that play off of each other as well as emphasize the polarity between the families. Once Kuhn finished her designs, it was up to the rest of the costume team to pull it all together.

Costuming entails much more than just wardrobe. Junior Nikita Schanzenbach is the hair and make-up technician and also helped put together the music that will be featured in the program.

"Nobody tells you what to do," she said. "[The supervisors] are just here to make sure we don't set things on fire."

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