Costume design students both historians and artists

Junior Anna Blankenberger spent spring break in the 18th Century.

Her task: designing and building the costumes for the “Into the Woods” musical that will open this weekend. The 1750s fairy-tale musical will include costumes students aren’t necessarily familiar with, including men’s suits with ruffled ties and jabot collars, as well as women’s corsets.

She began working in the studio the Saturday of spring break, building each costume from scratch or altering ready-made pieces. She produced 22 costumes in total, each consisting of three to four individual pieces.

“Working on the Rapunzel wig was stressful, something I had to make up on the fly,” she said.

This will be Blankenberger’s second time designing a show. She designed the “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” musical in fall 2009.

“The sewing, designing and especially costuming history classes really prepared me to take this on by myself,” Blankenberger said.

Each student majoring in theatre is required to take entry-level directing, lighting, costuming and acting courses.

Undergraduate courses include costume history, makeup design, acting, textiles, printing and drawing, crafts and millinery (hat-making).

After the costuming class, Blankenberger said she enjoyed the idea of bringing characters to life through what they wear.

“It’s interesting to see actors get into character more when they put on costumes,” she said. “People don’t usually wear hats, so when you put on a grand hat, you feel like a grand lady.”

Blankenberger is currently taking costume design professor Linda Pisano’s millinery course.

Pisano gave Blankenberger permission to take graduate level courses in order for Blankenberger to satisfy her theatre major’s emphasis in costume design.

The bachelor’s degree in liberal arts with an emphasis in costume design does not prepare students for professional theatre, but for graduate school, Pisano said. IU offers an MFA graduate training program in costume design.

“It is an intense three years, and the students who come usually have had two years of professional work or internship experience,” Pisano said.

The graduate students take turns designing main stage productions. Currently there is one third-year graduate student, two second-year and two first-year students.

First-year student Colleen Metzger worked at Portland Stage Company, Interlochen Center for the Arts and Barter Theatre before coming to IU in fall 2009.

“I knew there were design schools at NYU and Carnegie Mellon, but I wanted to see what else was out there,” Metzger said about choosing IU.

Metzger said IU offered a more hands-on experience for first-year design students, who can start designing and working in the costume shop right away, as opposed to other universities where students have to wait until they are further along in their graduate program. Metzger will be assisting third-year graduate student Erica Griese’s design thesis this spring.

“We’re friends helping each other out and encouraging each other when other schools are putting design students against one another,” she said.

Metzger designed “Parentheses of Blood” for the fall 2009 season. Because the play takes place in the Congo, a country she has never been to, she said she had to do much more research.

“You have to be a historian more than just an artist,” she said. “When you read the script, you have to see what motivates the characters in that time period and see how the political and economic climate all feed into why they are dressed.”

Pisano said the hasty judgment people tend to form based on how people look is what costume designers study and transfer to the stage.

“I don’t want to undermine the art or depth of what we do, but what we do is we look at the world around us and put it on stage,” Pisano said. “It is the same impulse a child has when they begin to create their own character.”

After graduating from Ohio State with an MFA, Pisano said she knew she wanted to go into academics. She said it is a thrill seeing students so excited about what they are doing.

“It’s so easy to get jaded and tired, but students are at the beginning of their careers and lives so they are enthusiastic, and to be a part of that is amazing,” Pisano said.

Pisano said alumni of the program have gone on to be faculty members at other universities, milliners at opera houses and freelance designers based out of New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

“It’s too hard of work if you don’t like it to stay in it,” she said. “If you think it’s the stereotypical ‘Oh, I’m going to take a theatre class because it’s easy,’ you’d never make it.”