WKUHerald.com: “Little Women,” the Broadway musical, will be performed at Van Meter Hall on April 1-3 as a co-production between the WKU Theatre and Dance Department and the WKU Department of Music.
The show tells the story of the four March sisters, centering around Jo, the writer, illustrating how they grew into a post-Civil War America while maintaining their familial bond. The show switches between both the present as well as flashback scenes, which creates the need for costumes to differentiate not only between the characters, but between time periods.
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I had never throughout about it, but I guess it does make sense: a large cast presents numerous challenges in the costume shop. Especially a production like “Little Women” which requires intricate period pieces. Not only that but certain fabrics/materials requires actual skills from a technician. Reading about some potential solutions and/or shortcuts costume designers take to meet often-rushed deadlines; (altering preexisting costumes, for instance) is fascinating. Moreover, Atlas Mendoza’s (costume designer) remark on the power of costume design and the way it plays into a director’s vision– hoping not to stand out but fit in with the rest of the design, resonated with me. Particularly because, as I’ve mentioned before, theatre is such a collaborative medium within the fine arts. And collaboration, to say the least, is vital in developing a unified design. Now, I could actually go on a whole rant about this, but let's just say that (from my perspective) some CMU productions could benefit from more collaboration.
Little Women is a story that is really dear to my heart. As someone who knows a moderate amount about historical fashion, when costumes are wildly inaccurate it can be really bothersome. Like the movie version of Little Women, the feeling of the characters were there slightly but it was just a mess otherwise. Here I think that they got the balance right. The designers see that accuracy is important but also that each of the March sisters are their own person who have their own style and change and grow up a lot throughout the story. Something that I wished would have been mentioned is the importance of poverty in the story. They talked about the two main aspects of each character's style and their relationship with others, but poverty is a huge topic in Little Women. Showing the difference between the Lawrences and the Marchs is so key with costuming. It’s so pivotal to show that Amy, Jo and Meg don’t have all these grand gowns that they long to have.
It is shocking to me that I haven’t had my Little Women phase. I have only seen the most recent (I think) movie, you know the one with Timothee Chalamet. Anyway, costume designers who actively engage with the story beyond what a character would wear are my favorite. I absolutely adore it when costumes focus on the details. I think part of the reason why this rings true for me is that as a stage manager I watch a show hundreds of times and it is so much more fun when you keep finding new little things within your show. I know that's not who the show is designed for but I do think there is something to be said about details even for first-time audience members. You can really see the care that was put into each costume. Details are not the first thing we notice when we watch a show but I would definitely say that the hard work that goes into getting the little things right is worth it when it comes to the integrity of the final product.
Little Women is always a show that requires special attention to the costumes, which the article highlights well, particularly the time period changes. When the same actor is playing themselves at different ages and the audience isn’t close enough to notice changes in makeup, hair, etc, the costumes do heavy lifting when indicating the time. Pollatsek’s quote about not trying to stick exactly to historical clothing is a great thing to keep in mind when designing period shows; sometimes being extremely accurate can distract the audience or not do the best job of conveying the story. A lot of people ragged on the recent Little Women film because of historically inaccurate costumes, but I think they did a great job of conveying a particular mood and energy of the characters. The other struggle mentioned in the article of having so many costume pieces to keep track of is harder than a lot of people might imagine.
Wow, this article took me back. I’ll never forget the first musical I ever had the chance to costume was “Little Woman” my freshmen year of High School. I remember I was given a pretty decent budget at the time, and immediately I began delving into the time period. The 1860s has such a unique style in this period because it was the beginning of garment industrialization in which people would stop going to tailors for individual garments and instead would purchase mass-produced garments in an assortment of sizes. The sewing machine was also to some extent just been used in large scale use and patterning was standardized to some extent as well. All in all, getting to costume a show like “Little Woman” took a lot of work and historical research, but the end product was so rewarding. It was really interesting to read this costume designers’ process when making the show, but in the end, it always feels a little off to me when costume designers say, “We’re not realistically portraying history, but we want to suggest a realistic portrayal of history.” For whatever reason, this ideology pervades throughout the industry that it is impossible to show historically correct garments on stage and in the film for whatever reason. In my opinion, this is just excusing laziness because historic garments can oftentimes be reproduced for cheaper than the rental price of a historically incorrect garment. I understand that there is simply not enough time to reproduce historically correct garments all the time, but I still find it silly to act as if creating a world that only looks the part from an amalgamation of rentals was part of the design process.
Reading this article brings back a lot of memory of my high school’s theatre, where we also had an incredibly large cast. To pull costumes for every cast member is a super-challenging job and we didn’t even have to make the actual costumes, so I cannot even imagine what it’s like to have to make or alter that many costumes. I think the design team was really smart in the way that there’s a mutual agreement in terms of what to prioritise. For example, they talked about how there’s must be a sense of realism considering it’s a story set mostly in the time of the Civil War. In this sense, historic accuracy needs to be at a certain level, however, there’s also a shift in time as the story progresses, so the designers have decided that it’s impossible to make it 100% realistic. I think this set goal is really important in creating a show with a united style and makes the show feel like a whole, rather than just each department doing their own thing and piecing everything together on stage.
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