Stage Directions: Everyone knows that great wig work is important to the artistic process of creating theater, but few know just how much work and skill go into producing the incredible design and execution of a wig. In this Working in the Theatre video from the American Theatre Wing, Paul Huntley, one of the most esteemed wig designers (and a past Tony Honoree), shares his career journey and spotlights the creative, economic, and technical processes of working in the hair and wig department.
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I don’t know much about wigs and how those work in theatre, so I found this video very interesting. My favorite part of this video was watching them make the wig. I never really realized how tedious of a process it is to make a wig, and I did not realize that every hair is strung individually. I also found it very interesting when they were talking about how they need to string the hair so it looks more natural and all of the different things they need to consider when making a wig, like fitting a mic under there and securing it properly and comfortably for the actor. I know that wigs are worn a lot on Broadway, but when I heard him say that he thinks every woman on Broadway right now is wearing a wig I was shocked. I would’ve thought that if this was such a big part of theatre we all would have heard more about it. So I am a little shocked that this is the first thing I’ve really ever seen about wigs in theatre. And I’m really glad I watched it too because I found it fascinating.
Wigs have always been something that has a huge visual impact on the show, but they are always overlooked or under appreciated. A good wig can take hundreds of hours to complete, and without it the show would not function in the same way. If you've ever been to a high school production where wigs are used, you would know how vital a good wig is. If a wig looks fake and shiny, it takes you out of the world of the play, because suddenly you are confused and judging the wig and not thinking about the show. The artistry that is required to put together a wig is extraordinary. The attention to detail required to perfect a hairline and a hair style and a hair texture in such a way that it looks real is immense. In the theater I worked at, I often saw that if they were using a wig with only one application, it was poorly made, with plastic looking hair. They simply could not afford the price of a high quality wig if it was only being used for one show, but the performance suffered. When I asked them why they used such poorly made wigs, I learned that a higher quality wig could be thousands of dollars. This only serves to show just how much work really goes into creating a wig. It's something that often gets lumped together with costumes, but the talent and skills used in making wigs are very specialized, and wig designers deserve more recognition.
Wigs are such a fascinating aspect of theater for they have the capability to completely transform the look of a person from an actor to a character.
Costumes sure do have a lot of effect on the way the audience perceives the actor but often it is the wig that does the main job of creating the persona around an actor about the character that they are playing.
This is the reason why I found this article and video so interesting. Seeing a wig being made and then been put on an actor shows the level of commitment a small thing such as a wig can have constitute which is nothing compared to the effect it gives to an actor and to the play as a whole.
Although wigs are essential for completing transforming a character, they are not easy to work with. That is why it is very important for them to be handled by people who are trained to handle them and worn only be the people for whom they are made otherwise a wig may be damaged and loose its capability to transform an actor.
This was so cool. I wish that as part of our curriculum here more people outside of costumes got to learn a little bit more about wigs and how they work. I also think that we have no idea how much work and money a good wig costs but we always know when the wigs looks bad or unrealistic, A wig also can make or break the design of the character. Just last night I was having a conversation with my roommate about the wigs for an upcoming show that we are doing here and we were talking through the options because it was such a big decision. Wigs are an interesting part of the business because they feel totally different from everything else but the are essential to the design process and the creation of a character. I hope to have the opportunity to learn more about wigs, and their maintenance throughout my career.
I am SUCH a huge fan of American Theatre Wing’s YouTube channel. When I was learning more about the theatre industry, these were the videos I watched. The words of wisdom from actual professionals were some of the many reasons I was so eager to become a professional myself. Wig making and care is one of the crafts I have not particularly spent time educating myself on, but this video makes me want to change that. I knew the process of making and caring for wigs is long and incredibly detailed, but a lot of this information is new to me. I never realized that there was an “English” way to make wigs, I thought it was a by-designer variation. It’s nice to see that wig designers make wigs specific to each actor beyond the general sizing. So much thought goes into each aspect of the wig, and it definitely shows through in the final product.
As with Samantha, I am an enormous fan of the American Theatre Wing videos, my personal favorites are the prop master, aerial choreographer, special effects, and stage automation ones. Wig making is an art that I value highly starting from my childhood trips to historical sites, notably Colonial Williamsburg. There the Wigmakers in the Wig shop always explained very thoroughly the process of making historical wigs and what types of hair they used like human, horse, yak, and goat. Since then I have always been fascinated by wigs not only from a transformative aspect, but also the immense amount of work that is required to make just one wig. I do not know if I have the patience to sit there an ventilate an entire wig. I am a professional Santa Claus, since I am unable to grow a real beard, and children would notice the artificial synthetic beards so I had a hand ventilated wig and beard set made for me in China, as I cannot afford the price on a domestic set which are about $2000. As far as the video, he is truly an artist with hair taking into consideration not only the appearance but the condition it puts the actors in such as when the mic pack has to go inside the wig, which seems like hell on earth to me. I have nothing but the deepest respect for the wigmakers.
“Acting wasn’t what I wanted to do at all…I wanted to do something more creative.” Mr. Huntley is such a hoot, and I can imagine that working with him is both a pleasure and a task at times. But the amount of high-level work he has done and what he has created of himself is really quite extraordinary. From our Wig Designer this summer, I learned that wigs are so much more complicated to make than I ever thought, but seeing the Ms. Calabretta ventilate each individual hair through those tiny holes is really something. As he described washing out the wigs, I can’t even imagine how much extra work that has got to be: shampooing and brushing out like regular hair, but then you have to re-shape them all over again! Which requires either the Designer to be the one maintaining all of the wigs (not the solution), or it requires the wig crew to be extremely skilled and perceptive, to return the wig to its required design. Having Mr. Huntley walk us through the entire process, and the history, surrounding wig-making is definitely not something that every actor, or even production member, will learn at school, and makes you appreciate all the more this ancient art form that is still alive and thriving today.
The value of these kind of documentary is enormous to the artist society of the theater industry. This not only recorded the materials and crafting skills of the work, it also revealed the continuous changing of the aesthetics at the time. In the video, the designer broke the process of making a wig down to the smallest pieces. These pieces are the results of experiences honed for life-time and precise calculations performed by masters. While not knowing a thing about making a wig, I can totally feel the devotion put in there. In my opinion, all kinds of craftsmanship should be preserved. Though the handmade era might have
been gone long ago, this kind of documentary holds its distinguished educational meaning. Never the less, looking back into the basis of our profession always inspires our imagination towards the future.
One of the first backstage jobs I ever had was putting on wigs for some of the bird girls in Seussical the Musical. I spent a long time doing pin curls before the run of the show and then ran the mics for the run of the show. In high school we had this woman come in who made wigs for theater as her profession and she helped make a lot of the wigs that we used in shows. Wigs are fascinating because they help create a character so different from the actor playing it. A lot of times it helped the actor with the final shift into their character because they see someone different. However, if a wig is done poorly, people can tell that the hair is not real and a lot of times that takes people out of the show. For me, when I notice a bad wig, it makes the character less believable.
Wigs, are personally one of the kind of funniest pieces of stage trickery and magic that we theatre practicioners have in our repertoire. Maybe it's just the idea of the origin of wigs in the depths of history that amuses me. Someone, somewhere had to decide that someone else didn't like their hair so much that they had take someone else's hair, or even an animal's hair, and put it on top of their own! I guess it really just begs the question of why we subconsciously place so much importance on hair when we get an impression of beauty from somebody. As with every part of our industry, the craft of wig-making and fitting has advanced so far that many times wigs are actually indistinguishable from the real thing. However, in our past it was not really so. I listen to a podcast called James Bonding, which is, as you can probably guess, a James Bond appreciation podcast, and one of the hosts has what he calls a "wig-dar" where he can spot all the wigs in those movies, just because many of them were not quite "on par" as they say.
I’ve worked with some wigs before in the past, and even from the little bit of styling and adjusting I’ve done on them I know how tedious they can be, and how much work professionals put into the countless hours of styling them right. I really only deal with the kinds of wigs that are synthetic ones for non-performance costumes; so they’re mostly a series of wefts, occasionally a lace-front. It’s even more time consuming when the wigs are made to be tailored each individual actor/actress, with each strand tied on by hand. Wigs can really make or break the costume. If the wig is poor quality, or styled wrong, it can throw off the entire look; even if the costume itself is beautiful. I enjoy learning about the process of making wigs completely by hand, though I’m not sure if I would ever want to do something quite as arduous as that. But I definitely want some more experience working with wigs and styling them. Greatest respects for those who can do this sort of work every day for a living.
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