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labricoleuseDress Up Your Shakespeare: Utah's festival costume demands keep couture crew in stitches, by Ellen Fagg
Welcome to another undramatic morning behind the scenes at the festival, where a variety of houses, tents and backstage wings serve as busy costume and set shops for what's thought to be the only theater repertory company in the world to launch six plays in six days.
Yes, that's the actual cringe-inducing headline, and the byline is no joke. Despite this, it's a fairly well-written overview article on the Festival's costume division. The "Six Plays, Six Days" reference makes us seem like total champs, but it's no grand feat really--they just hire enough people to get the job done. Unlike, say, some other repertory companies out there. These folks interviewed the USF costume director, Jeffrey Lieder, who's about to open his 20th season here. I'd be interested to see a hard copy of the paper, to see if there were any accompanying photographs that didn't make it into the online edition. A couple different camera crews trooped through the crafts house this summer, in one case photographing me stitching a cavalier cuff onto the top of a riding boot on the oscillating-shuttle longarm machine.
ETA: They have since added a link to a photo gallery, which does include the pic of me stitching a boot.
I do take exception to the comment by the interim director that costuming is a technology that hasn't changed in 200 years (forgivable, since i hardly expect him to be on the cutting edge of costuming technology, but still). I'd bet my right arm no costumers two centuries ago were, say, utlizing thermoplastics in millinery foundation structures or embroidering with computerized machines or airbrushing dimension into distressed costume pieces. But, why split hairs? Any press is good press, so they say.
Welcome to another undramatic morning behind the scenes at the festival, where a variety of houses, tents and backstage wings serve as busy costume and set shops for what's thought to be the only theater repertory company in the world to launch six plays in six days.
Yes, that's the actual cringe-inducing headline, and the byline is no joke. Despite this, it's a fairly well-written overview article on the Festival's costume division. The "Six Plays, Six Days" reference makes us seem like total champs, but it's no grand feat really--they just hire enough people to get the job done. Unlike, say, some other repertory companies out there. These folks interviewed the USF costume director, Jeffrey Lieder, who's about to open his 20th season here. I'd be interested to see a hard copy of the paper, to see if there were any accompanying photographs that didn't make it into the online edition. A couple different camera crews trooped through the crafts house this summer, in one case photographing me stitching a cavalier cuff onto the top of a riding boot on the oscillating-shuttle longarm machine.
ETA: They have since added a link to a photo gallery, which does include the pic of me stitching a boot.
I do take exception to the comment by the interim director that costuming is a technology that hasn't changed in 200 years (forgivable, since i hardly expect him to be on the cutting edge of costuming technology, but still). I'd bet my right arm no costumers two centuries ago were, say, utlizing thermoplastics in millinery foundation structures or embroidering with computerized machines or airbrushing dimension into distressed costume pieces. But, why split hairs? Any press is good press, so they say.
