How could Clark Kent be Superman without his disguise? Who would Danny Zuko, from “Grease,” be without his leather jacket? How would the Wicked Witch of the West be defeated if Dorothy never took the ruby red slippers? None of these storylines could exist without the role of costumes, which allows plots to be realized visually.
The costumes for Stuyvesant productions are not made by mice or fairy godmothers. Instead, dedicated costumers work in a cramped room behind the theater. Many people, including seniors and costume co-directors Rebecca Levitan, Talia Kagan and Rose Malloy, first got involved with the costume crew when producing SING! costumes. They went on to join the costume crew responsible for making all costumes for Stuyvesant Theater Company (STC) productions.
For these productions, costumes are usually sketched after reading the script, watching movies and doing research. The costume directors have to coordinate the costumes with the directors, actors and the other crews. They take measurements of the actors and, with a limited budget, buy the fabric to create the outfits. Over the years, the costume crew has fostered ties with many fabric stores and obtained discounts from them.
Compared to STC productions, SING! allows for greater costume creativity due to their original script.
According to Levitan, the costumes in SING! tend to be much crazier than those for STC productions. Last year, for example, SING! costume crews made monkey costumes, a fat-man suit and a hamburger-suit.
But with over 100 costumes to be made, a limited budget and about one month, “the costumers die around SING!,” Malloy said. The weeks before SING! and other STC productions, crew members sometimes end up sewing costumes at 4:30 in the morning at home.
This year, more freshman have joined costume crew than in previous years. Some new members do not know how to sew, but are quickly learning from more experienced costumers.
Sophomore Natasha Andaz joined the costumes crew this year because she always wanted to know how to sew. But she didn’t know she would have to hem so many circle skirts for the fall musical, “Bye Bye Birdie.”
Levitan was an experienced sewer when she joined the costume crew. “ My mom made her own clothes in high school, so I took sewing classes when I was younger,” she said.
Kagan originally wanted to join the Soph-Frosh SING! art crew her freshman year, but joined the costume crew since members were known to be nice. Kagan used a sewing machine for the first time her freshman year, and now is a skilled costumes co-director “ I started with sewing on hooks and buttons, but my first real job was sewing sleeves,” she said.
The directors are hoping to bring in students from art and fashion schools, such as the Fashion Institute of Technology, to teach members about sewing garments, picking out fabric and making measurements. They plan to make the costume-making process more organized than it has been in previous years.
The costume crew worked overdrive the entire week before the production of “Bye Bye Birdie.” They made all jackets and outfits for the girls and some for the boys, including a gold suit for lead Conrad Birdie.
The costumes “were actually really good. The mother’s costume was amazing […] and all the girls’ [costumes] because it really worked as a group,” freshman Abbie Kouzmanoff said of the musical’s costumes.
Often unacknowledged, costume crew students create the vision of the writers and directors. Despite the hard work and tight schedules, costumers have tons of fun because it is “obviously the most important crew,” Levitan said.
