Creating Costumes (with Caney)
CCS has a renowned theatre program. Our sound, lighting, direction, and music are all state of the art. What some may not realize, is that our costume department is just as impressive.
In the three times the Jewel Awards (the theatre awards show for high schoolers in Chattanooga) have taken place, CCS has won the outstanding costume design award twice. Roughly 250 costumes were used in Anastasia. With a cast of 54, that means each actor received an average of five costumes.
How do these ensembles get created? Who is in charge of ensuring that each actor looks their very best? Most of all, who can we credit these Jewel Awards to? The answer is one Becca Caney.
“I would say 3000 plus,” says Caney, when asked if she could estimate how many costumes are kept in the attic above the Lower School. “If you count everything in tubs, for sure.”
With all these options, how does she even begin to go about designing a concept for the show? What is her process? “Well, first I find out from Mary Catherine (Mrs. Schimpf), the design concept. Like if we’re going to keep it as is, or if we’re going to create some sort of authentic spin on it,” she shares. For instance, the “statues” ensemble in Mary Poppins is normally put in grey bodysuits airbrushed to look like stone on Broadway or in regional productions, but CCS’s design team wanted to create something more fantastical. They took inspiration from the original film’s carousel scene, adding multicolored hairpieces and ruffled leg warmers to resemble manes and hooves. This gave “Jolly Holiday” an entirely new concept, making it seem as though a carousel had come to life (a choice that received major praise from Jewel Awards judges).
But what is an idea without historical accuracy? Caney continues, “Then wherever that design concept lands, I start doing period research on garments, jobs, lifestyle, economic status, if there was war, what colors were actually being made.” Every fabric choice is so meticulously planned, every detail so fine-tuned, that the audience couldn’t possibly notice every button and hem crafted with such precision. Still, each fabric sample brings the actors closer to a conceived reality. Caney gives the example, “like In France (for the Act II opener, Paris Holds The Key), that chartreuse color was actually really popular in the twenties in France.” The actors who wore this shade of green were told this too, and the “fun fact” influenced their character. Actress Caitlin Russel describes that, “When I first put on my costume for Paris in Anastasia, it felt like being transported to another time, and to a world where I was a rich Parisian.”
Now that we’ve established Caney’s process of designing the costume, let’s look at what she avoids doing. “I wait for a while to look at other versions… of people that have done the show,” she shares. “I want to give my brain a chance to come up with original things.” This sentiment is shared amongst the creative team as a whole. Gabriella Smith, CCS’s choreographer and play director, rarely uses the very same dances seen in every version of a show.
Smith also describes the script as merely the “skeleton of a story,” explaining that, “As a creative team, there is an opportunity to spin and evolve a concept in order to bring a new light to the script. The idea that there is only one way to do it can be very minimizing and stifling for the imagination [and] to dream up a world. When you take away those boundaries, something truly beautiful can come about.” Through this mindset, CCS productions are no longer constrained by an idea of how they “should” look, and this applies even more so to costuming. Most recently, CCS performed 12 Angry Jurors, a play that Smith feared could become stagnant and boring if not executed correctly. To avoid this, she embraced the concept of a confined space, referencing shows like Severance to amplify the tension in the jury room.
Caney was able to add to this concept through the use of layers. The script describes the room as hot to begin with, and as the plot continues it reaches a point of stifling. Naturally, any character in this setting would begin to shed extra items of clothing, so Caney provided her actors with belts, jackets and scarves to emphasize this. The removal of these layers was twofold, not only aiding the physical setting, but also representing each character's emotional shift once they lost an article of clothing.
Anyone who’s ever worked on a costume crew with Caney knows her number one rule: No fast fashion. But why does this matter? Some might argue that no one would know the difference between a thrifted or Amazon ordered jacket. Caney disagrees.
“Anything you buy on Amazon now is not natural fibers,” Caney explains. “It’s made of polyester, so it looks thin and shiny on stage.”
This composition of fabric is counterproductive to a show's goal of authenticity. She quotes Mrs. Schimpf, saying, “It [the costume] should look like someone’s actual clothes, it should never look like a costume.”
This intentionality can be seen in Caney (and I’s) favorite show costumed at CCS: Seussical The Musical.
Traditionally, Suessical is designed solely based on the Dr. Seuss’ anthology, complete with Truffula trees and Pill-berry bushes galore. This is all well and good, but there is one aspect of the show CCS really honed in on, The Circus MckGurkus. The Circus is only mentioned in roughly 5 songs throughout the show and is a setting that is either overlooked or comedified in most productions, but both Schimpf and Caney saw an opportunity to make a unified design concept out of a relatively hodgepodged show. Suddenly, the Cat in the Hat becomes the ringleader, Bird Girls trapeze artists, Whickersham Brothers strongmen, and Whos clowns. All of these wildly different characters are brought together under one umbrella (or tent if you will), helping create a cohesive look and unified cast.
As a final question, I asked Caney why costume design matters to her. What's stopping our costume department from loading up a cart at Spirit Halloween and calling it a day?
Caney finishes, “Years ago, before I started doing it, I would’ve said because it makes the show more aesthetic (which it does), but I think the key thing I’ve learned after working with kids, actors specifically, is when they put on a costume that fits them well and that they feel confident in, it really helps them transform from themselves and become that character.”
