WICKED Costumes: Wardrobe Maintenance

Hi, I'm Sean McCourt, and I'm Lindsay

Northen, welcome to another costume

edition of "Behind the Emerald Curtain."

There are over 400 custom-made costumes in

'Wicked,' and it takes an expert team to

maintain them in the midst of eight

performances a week. Join us, as we meet

the folks in the wardrobe room, and they

take us through a day in the life of a

costumer. Alice Gilbert is an amazing

wardrobe supervisor. I've worked with

her before, I had to have her on 'Wicked'

because I thought "She's the only person

who can understand the complexities of

a monkey costume, and a mask, all the way

to the most delicate, beaded piece of

Chiffon." I think, in many ways, Susan

was happy because I had done a lot of

shows over a long period of time, and so

there were things that I could have input

about and choices that you might want to

make to make it easier to maintain the

show over a long period of time. What the

fabric is, what the texture is going to be

Alice takes every single piece of fabric

that I choose, and in something like

'Wicked,' is over 2000 pieces of fabric,

she takes her nail and she digs into it

to make sure that it is going to survive.

For her, survival is the key. I call it

'The Alice Test'— These clothes do eight

performances a week, they live through

sweat, water, fire, performance after

performance, and they have to stay as

beautiful from the very first day to the

last day that they have on stage. It's an

unbelievably difficult life for this costume.

For wardrobe to do the show there are 12

dressers, plus myself and the assistant,

and we have 4-8 people doing daywork,

depending on the day of the week. They are

there before, during, and after every

performance doing a kind of triage,

whether or not it's a tear, or a dropped

bead, or a loose connection, the whole

team of people are prepared at any moment

to jump in, to fix something.

Who the costume would see through the day,

if it were a single costume: There'll be

four or five people dealing in the world

of any individual costume, over a day's

period. In the morning, early would come

the dayworkers, if there had been

something that had happened to it the

night before, we have some dayworkers who

would like, burrow into the costume, as

some of these things are like 16 layers.

When it's time to appear in the show,

the dresser would put it onto the actor,

the actor will wear it, and the dresser

would pull it off the actor, and it will

go back on the rack and the dresser will

bring it back downstairs. Everything will

be looked at everyday, and of course

everything will be worn everyday, so it's

the constant wearing of the clothes, plus

even the handling of the clothes, so like

they go on and off the hangers, they go

up and down the racks, the racks go on

the elevator, racks go back and forth,

you have constant opportunities for

abrasion. The craft of doing wardrobe is

indeed dealing with something that has

originally been made totally by hand.

10-12 people have their hands on a dress,

there's no mass-production here, it is

something that can only be done in a one

on one basis; you and the costume,

right there.

I know, that Alice Gilbert will always be

there for every second of every show, so

I know they're always going to look good.