On Pins and Needles: Notes from the Costume Shop

COLORS OF THE SEASON
Guest post from costumer Deborah Austin

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere you go backstage, in the wings, and on the Mainstage at Asheville Community Theatre, but the holidays arrived in the costume shop in mid-October. ACT’s next show, Dashing Through the Snow, calls for an elf, an angel, Mrs. Santa Claus, and three characters from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. There is also a last-minute Christmas Eve wedding party of bride and bridesmaids and an innkeeper with an amazing wardrobe of holiday sweaters.

Set in the 1980s in a Christmas themed bed and breakfast in Tinsel, Texas, the opportunities for over-the-top outfits and hair styles are unlimited. The unit set is decked out with every imaginable Christmas ornament, wreath, and stocking in the traditional holiday shades of red and green.

I usually try to fashion a complementary color scheme to work with the set and lighting designers’ palettes, creating a picture of colors and textures woven together for each “look” of the show. (Not in Tinsel, Texas.) The goal of the costume crew has been to create the loudest, brightest collection of colors that scream “Tacky!” when set against the cardinal red and holly greens of the B&B reservation desk and living room. Think plum, lime green, orange, purple, pink, rust, and yellow. Oh yes, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas … that is, Christmas in Tinsel, Texas!