Hi, I'm Anthony Galde from 'Behind the
Emerald Curtain.' Today, we'll take a look
at the hair, and wig designs for 'Wicked.'
From simple looks to elaborate headpieces,
these imaginative styles are uniquely Oz.
Wigs are so funny because we are all as
human beings used to dealing with hair
on our bodies and treating it in a certain
way. The wig is an object; Tom Watson is
a great, great, hair designer, and wig
maker, so his wigs, he wants people to
treat them like their own hair. Once we've
made the decision of what the wig is going
to be we know who is going to be wearing
the wig, how the hair is actually going to
move on the head, whether or not there's
color change, what the color is going to
be, then it's given over to the hands of a
wig-maker. Susan designs the costumes to
be asymmetrical, a lot of the hair is also
asymmetrical so you'll see they'll be a
single sided horn in the wig that goes up
to the right side with a hat on the other
side, so it's completely asymmetrical.
All of Susan Hefry's original sketches
included sketches of the hair. We look at
the sketch, we try to understand the
language that we are going to be using-
The conversation has to do with the color
of hair, the shape of the styles of hair,
this conversation is about blending all of
the elements together.
Whenever any new actor comes into the show
their hair is addressed almost
immediately, there's always for every
actor, even if they're wigged for the
entire show, a conversation between
the wig supervisor and myself about
color, texture, length.
Our job, as soon as we get our hands on
the actor, is to measure them in every
conceivable way. Most people for the first
time are shocked that there are so many
measurements to be had. To understand
how to make the wig, you have to have
literally almost a tracing of the head.
We do a mold of their head, using
basically a plastic bag and tape, and then
we take that plastic bag mold that we just
did and we stuff it out to meet certain
measurements, so basically we'll end up
having a duplicate of their head in the
studio, and then we can build the wig on
that duplicate. When we make the mold of
the head we start by prepping the heads
that we get the hair as flat as we
possibly can, and then we get the plastic
bag over their head and start taping it
down so that we've basically covered their
entire head with tape, so that forms the
actual shape, and then we use a sharpie
to outline exactly where the hairline is
on each person, so you know, if they have
a widow's peak we can capture that, if
they have a receded hairline we capture
that, then after that we measure- we take
a series of various measurements,
circumference, across the back of the nape
from the front-center to the back, over
the top of the head and so forth. We take
those measurements so that we know how
we have to stuff that mold out later, so
we have something to compare it to.
It's literally the road map of a person's
head. Once we have the head wrap we take
the headwrap and find a canvas block whose
circumference is about the same as the
circumference of the actor or actress's
head, then we place the mold onto the
block, tape it down, then actually make
a series of cuts into that mold and start
stuffing it with polyfill, and that
allows us to basically stuff the head out
till we get to the exact measurements
that we've taken before, and that gives us
the duplicate of their head. There's two
ways we can make the wig: either we
start with nothing, and we build a
foundation, we build everything, or we
start with an existing wig, rip off the
front, rip off the top, and customize it
to the person. It takes about anywhere
from fifteen to forty hours to build the
wig, most of that process is putting hair
in the cap, then we start building the wig
from scratch that very day. Every hair is
put on by a craftsperson, every hair is
put into that wig using methods that've
been around for 300, 400 years now, so
nothing's changed about wig making in the
past three centuries. On 'Wicked'
Broadway there're approximately 120 wigs,
including facial hair as well, which is
much larger than most shows. Other
productions of 'Wicked' have about 109,
110 wigs as well, so right now there's 7
productions in the world, that's 800 wigs
just for 'Wicked' alone. It's impossible
to talk about a costume if you're not
talking about the hair too, the hair
design for the show is intrinsic to the
design of the costume, to all of a piece.
The wigs are really what pull it all
together, for all of the time and energy
we spend making the clothes -and they
are exceptional- the clothes the shoes the
gloves the hats, it's not a costume
it is not finished, they're not in
character until they have a wig on.