Playbill: They say when you’re nervous onstage in front of a crowd to imagine the audience in their underwear. But an actor never wants to be the one in his underwear in front of an audience. Enter Broadway dressers. Members of this integral backstage team preserve the look of the actors—literally dressing them from head to toe. From pre-setting costumes backstage to facilitating quick changes, from keeping their actors hydrated to coordinating post-show madness, the relationship between an actor and a dresser is one of the most intimate on Broadway.
6 comments:
Its odd to think of a job that begins at 6pm and ends at 11:30 every night. It seems as if your schedule becomes nocturnal. This article is really interesting because it breaks down a dressers night from start to finish and details the jobs. Here at school the wardrobe team on a Chosky runs differently because the team is much smaller. On a Broadway show the wardrobe team is broken into so many more parts with very specialized responsibilities. It seems as though a Broadway dresser along with running the show, acts as a personal assistant (at least to the stars.) Regarding different responsibilities, I think its interesting that the dresser is responsible for small repairs, but not laundry. I would have thought that all repairs are part of a separate department.
I see a lot that dressers follow stars from show to show, which is nice, and cool to see the relationships that develop in the theater.
It is crazy to think of costumes so large that a pop-up dressing room had to be made for the actress to actually get dressed. Reading and hearing about the scale at which Broadway functions never ceases to amaze me.
It is really great to see this play-by-play of what a show is like as a dresser. I especially like that this article was about three dressers on three different shows, because it gave me an idea of what aspects of being a dresser are unique and what is consistent. To me one of the most surprising thing was that the dresses for The King and I don’t fit through the door. This article also reminds me of when I talked to one of the dressers for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and he told me that it is also about pre-setting. This article has only confirmed to me that, as much as there are some crazy moments where you need to do everything fast (especially in the case of Kinky Boots) the bulk of the job is just making sure everything is ready to go, set the way it needs to be set, so that everything can happen as quickly as necessary. Overall, I really enjoyed reading about what working a show as a dresser is like.
I don't think I ever fully realized how much I love theatre and how much I need it in my life until I started working backstage as a dresser. My first ever theatre class in high school, my teacher told all us little freshmen that if we were meant to do this, we would know. One day, when we were least expecting it, a moment would come out of nowhere and make us realize that this was exactly what we were supposed to be doing with our lives and that nothing else would ever compare. I watched over my shoulder for a good year, waiting for my moment. Then I got caught up in the work and forgot.
My senior year, I was wardrobe crew head (as well as costume designer) for The Sound of Music. I had just successfully finished a particularly important quick change, and was walking back through our three foot wide backstage crossover (a tiny space between the cinder block wall and the upstage drop) when a the sound of the dress I was carrying rustling against the curtain and the wall hit me out of nowhere. It was a gorgeous, tangerine-orange silk-taffeta ballgown. I was carrying it draped across both of my forearms. And suddenly that swishing sound just hit me, and I felt overwhelmed by the sense that I would rather die than live a life in which I would never get to hear it again. I was exhausted and stressed and sweaty and strung-out, but I was happy in a way I could never measure against any other kind of happiness. And that was the moment when I knew that I would be doing this for the rest of my life.
Being a dresser is rewarding in a way no other experience I have ever had in costume design has been. Tonight The Plague in Venice opened, and as a wardrobe crew member I am a dresser for both Caroline Pluta and Kelsey Tarantino. I am so glad, despite the insanity that is this semester at the moment, that I get to work with both of these ladies every night. Being a dresser is something I cherish both professionally and personally, because the support I am able to give both actor and designer simultaneously is beyond rewarding. To know that these professionals feel the same way is more than a relief - it is a joy. I cannot wait until the day that I am able to pull off the same stunts that they do backstage, and knowing that the fun doesn't stop once I leave an educational environment only makes me more impatient to see what is out there. These people may be unsung heroes to the rest of Broadway, but to me they are the essential cogs that make every wheel turn in their respective shows. Bravo to them. And bravo to the actors who know their worth.
You almost never see articles on the backstage work of theatre artist, much less the wardrobe department. Seeing this article warmed my heart. The play by play nature of this article was also really cool to see. I remember last time we got something like this it was an interview with a stage manager and the questions were really non specific because the audience was the average theatre-goer. This time, they don’t sugar coat the process of how much has to be done before the show and how much gets done during it, putting something in every fifteen minutes of show time. You really start to feel the crazy complexity of being a dresser just by reading this article especially since they seamlessly wrote about three separate shows at once, showing how the process is similar show to show, all the while putting in the cute, positive stories of actor/dresser interactions that show the teamwork and camaraderie that goes on during each show.
It is absolutely amazing how much work a dresser has to do during one show. I love how this article really shows the complexity that goes into the backstage dance of quick changes and quick repairs. I didn’t realize how much the dresser would be involved in some of the social aspect of their actor’s life. From coordinating their guests to lifting their moods backstage, dressers really have to know their actor really well to anticipate what they need. As the dresser Anne Curry touched upon, the dresser Kelly O’Hara needs is different for each show she works on. I think that this article is structured very well, with a time breakdown so the reader can see just how busy and chaotic a night on Broadway is for a dresser. I think that highlighting the dresser is a great thing, as they do a lot of work, but are almost never mentioned for it.
This is so cool! I have always thought that the most fun job I could have on crew was as a dresser- I love working wardrobe. It is so much fun! I really appreciate the potential relationships that can be built with actors and I have certainly made many friends that way. I definitely find it a lot of fun, and particularly exhilarating to successfully complete intricate costume quick changes. The great thing about this article is I got to see people doing what I love professionally and really enjoying it. It gives me a lot of hope. I am also reminded that if you’re passionate about something it does not have to be a chore, it can be fun! A brilliant thing about all these dressers is that they all appreciate fun and seem to have a great sense of humor. I feel like that can be applied to any job that is worked- you just need to find the fun in it!
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