WICKED Hair and Makeup: Wigs

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.