Lauren deBeers

In the middle of the auditorium stage is a boy, suspended upside down. He is dangling 12 feet off the floor in his disheveled costume: black suit pants, a collared shirt rolled up to the elbows, and a red vest over top. But not all of the mess is intentional. The vest, much to my dismay, is completely covering his face. And it’s my job to fix it.

I have been sewing since I was ten years old, and in that time I have made a lot of clothing. I have done alterations for friends and family—everything from altering a prom dress to making new furniture coverings. I like costuming because the things I make are unique items I never would have created if not for this environment. When I joined the costume crew, I was expecting to just sew. I didn’t realize it would be more complicated. During Hairspray, I sewed feathers for the first time, and during She Kills Monsters, I made armor and gauntlets. There is never a “right way” in costumes. Sewing can be very technical, but costuming creates stories and allows me to have artistic freedom. For many shows, I make items that I have never created before, but because I have outside knowledge from making clothing, the process is almost like a puzzle. I have to figure out which techniques I could use from something I have done before that could work for the current costume.

Sometimes, the puzzle of costuming requires quick thinking. As part of the costume crew for Mary Poppins, I helped with quick changes, alterations, and making sure that all the actors knew what they were wearing at specific times. The stage crew had built amazing rigging that created the illusion of flying across the stage. Regrettably, the costume crew and I had not really thought about how that would affect the costumes.

To me, the one thing that is most unique to the costume world is industrial velcro. The sound of pulling apart velcro is the soundtrack for costumes. So, I sewed four pieces of velcro to both the vest and shirt, two pieces in the front and the back. To our delight, it worked. The vest was not in his face and his costume looked just how it did when he was standing upright. The solution, like the song in the musical, was “practically perfect.”