Tailor made hero

In lowest level Sage Building for the Arts, where few dare to venture, costume designer Bryan Simmons stands over pictures and patches of fabric. He's preparing designs for the upcoming theatre production "Cymbeline" and the Opera Workshop. A sea of needles, threads, patches of cloth, and projects current and past cover the yellow table. It's the heart of theatre season, and its time to sew.

Simmons is an integral part in the production of any play. He designs, sews, dyes and researches costumes for each play, act and production. And he and his crew do it all in a short time frame: four to five weeks from when a director approaches him.

"The audience tends to not think about how much effort goes into these costumes," Simmons said. "They think that there's a giant closet that you can go into with everything in there."

Simmons said he works closely with the director of each play - trying to capture each director's image and adding in his own. "Cymbeline" " will be directed by Director of Theatre George Angell next semester. Simmons said he has talked to Angell several times this semester in preparation, about possible armor and shields that will hold true to the Roman legions and the Britons of "Cymbeline" .

"I take the informational statement from the director then do research on the time period," Simmons said. "Sometimes I'll be looking at the art and architecture of the period and take that information to boil it down to the essentials."

From those essentials come renderings or collages of fabric. And, when approved, costumes follow. Simmons said the theatre department tries to build each costume they use, but in extreme cases, they rent some costumes. The costumes that have been built are put into the storage closest - a closet that's five rows, two racks high, and packed with Victorian era clothes, army uniforms, space outfits and rows of shirts, pants and robes waiting to be worked with.

Simmons has two hired hands to help him and a team of students working for their theatre production class under him. Depending on the class size, he said, he can have anywhere between 15 to 20 people spending three hours a week sewing, designing, patching and hemming.

He said the size of the class doesn't always affect how quickly the costumes are completed depending on the costumes' complexity. He said a designer with experience can complete an outfit in half the time it would take a team of inexperienced designers. Still, depending on a team's time limit, it will take four to five weeks to complete a set of costumes for a play. And that can be a time sink for those in the costume crew. Freshman Katherine Yelken knows exactly what kind of commitment costume construction requires. She said she works four to five hours a week in the basement but that number can stretch to 30 hours the week of a play. She also volunteers on the costume run crew the week of a play, a team of designers who retrieve outfits and help actors change into their costumes.

Fellow freshman Daniel Thelen is in the theatre production class, and must put three hours a week crafting costumes.

"It's really cool to see how designs on paper get transferred to outfits," Thelen said. "It's neat to see how the clothes are made and how to make them."

But in the end, it's all about getting the costumes done.

"The director tells Bryan what he wants and Bryan delivers," Thelen said.