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I love costumes. They’re fun to wear, they help to tell the story of the show you’re working on, and they help you to delve deeper into your character. It’s fascinating to me, as a youth theatre director, to see the change in demeanour when a young actor puts on their costume for the first time — there’s a “lightbulb” moment there, where they really start to truly get who they are portraying. It makes everything a bit more real.
That’s why it is so frustrating when I’m watching a production and admiring the beautiful costumes to see… well, a general unkemptness onstage.
Costume teams work incredibly hard to make costumes look amazing, and then the look is disturbed by silly little things either forgotten or missed by the actors.
It’s the little details that can make or break a costume, and take an audience member completely out of the moment.
There are tons of great half-up, half-down hairstyles, and YouTube has tons of hair tutorials. Arm yourself with elastics, bobby pins, and hairspray, and get that hair out of your face!
(While you’re at it, please stop pushing your hair behind your ears and smoothing it while you’re onstage. If your hair were tied back properly, you wouldn’t have to do that, and I can tell you’re not thinking about your character when you’re constantly fixing your hair. Leave it alone!)
Please be especially aware of these details during technical and dress rehearsals. Of course, these are vital details during showtime, but many shows have a photographer come in and take production photos during tech and dress, both for publicity purposes and for photo memory DVDs for the cast and crew. Do you want your sloppiness captured in photos forever? I didn’t think so!
Focusing on details like these helps to make the world of the show seem even more real. No matter what it looks like and whether or not you like the costume, it is designed to clearly establish who your character is within the show. Treat it, and yourself, with respect and wear it with pride!
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Kerry Hishon is an actor, director, stage combatant, and writer living in London, Ontario, Canada. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Stage & Screen Studies from Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) in 2006, and has been working in youth theatre since 2008. She has directed shows for the Original Kids Theatre Company since 2010, including Peter and the Starcatcher, Tarzan, The Wedding Singer, Disney's The Little Mermaid Jr., Fiddler on the Roof Jr. and many more. She has taught OKTC's T.A.G. (The Actor Grows) program for five years, teaching the basics of theatre to over 60 new company members each year. She has directed, taught, acted and written for various theatre companies throughout Ontario, and recently enjoyed her first experience as choreographer for Time Warp: 50 Years of the Rock Musical with Musical Theatre Productions. Kerry is a member of Art of Combat and has trained in stage combat in London Ontario (Shrew'd Business) and New York City (AoC) since 2010. Kerry is a Drama Teacher Academy Instructor with her course Theatre Etiquette 101, as well as a featured blogger for Theatrefolk.com, specializing in posts on rehearsal procedures. She also writes at her own blog, kerryhishon.com. In her free time, Kerry enjoys travelling, reading, knitting, and dancing.
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