For Teacher Appreciation Week, May 4-8, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin shadowed teachers and is sharing their stories with our readers.
Several actors had fittings scheduled that afternoon for the upcoming show. They came to the costume shop at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“We’re going to put you in a wig,” UWM teaching faculty Dana Rochester told Thomas Füglsang, a freshman doubling as a soldier/servant in “Three Sisters” by Anton Chekhov. The Russian play would be Füglsang’s first mainstage performance at UWM.
“Alright,” Füglsang said, then realized what it meant. “I won’t have to cut my hair off!”
Füglsang changed into his first costume and opened the door for Rochester’s colleague, assistant professor Jason Orlenko, to inspect. Rochester sat outside the dressing room, clipboard in hand.
“Any notes on the suspenders?” she asked. “How are the sleeves?”
Rochester scribbled down alterations student seamstresses would need to tend to in the weeks leading up to the show, which opened April 29. Her notes went in a binder she calls the Costume Bible. It’s essential during show week.
Rochester and Orlenko train students in the art of transformation: how to outfit an actor, alter someone’s appearance with makeup and style hair to convey a certain look.
It sounds like glamorous work. The costume shop most certainly is not. In the basement of the Theater Building, the shop is a windowless room with concrete floors and metal stools. But it’s where the magic happens.
Rows of sewing machines convert bolts of fabric into beautiful frocks. Styrofoam mannequin heads line a dressing room counter, waiting for wigs. Racks of clothing hint at previous productions, some of which will be revamped for future shows.
“It’s never the same, which is what’s so fun about theater,” Rochester said.
UWM theater professors work on professional shows on top of teaching
Rochester, a teaching faculty, started teaching at UWM in 2012. Orlenko started a year later as an adjunct instructor.
Together, they teach costuming in the state’s largest college theater production program. About 200 students are declared majors in the department this year.
In addition to teaching, Orlenko and Rochester both do freelance work. It’s important, they say, to maintain connections to the professional theater community and link students to potential opportunities.
Rochester, for example, was busy curling Anna’s and Elsa’s wigs one morning before class. First Stage produced Disney’s “Frozen” from April 6-16 at the Marcus Performing Arts Center.
Recent UWM graduates have gone on to work for the Repertory Theater, Skylight, the Milwaukee Ballet and American Players Theater in Spring Green. Others work in Chicago.
“It’s nice to know we’re setting a standard for when they go out in the community,” Orlenko said.
Stage makeup class teaches all kinds of special techniques
Orlenko and Rochester were both theater kids in high school.
They graduated from UWM’s theater program the same year, 2008, but their paths crossed only occasionally. Rochester remembers designing Orlenko’s costume in “Philadelphia, Here I Come!”
Orlenko switched from an acting major to theater production in his junior year, a common move for theater students. Then he went off to earn his master’s degree at Indiana University.
Rochester, always drawn to hair and makeup, went to cosmetology school after UWM but eventually returned to campus to teach.
“Oh, I need to order dirt today,” Rochester said to herself on the morning of April 1, before students descended to the basement for classes. She jotted a reminder on a Post-it note.
She didn’t need actual dirt. It’s what a certain type of stage makeup is called in the theater world. There’s a fire scene in “Three Sisters,” so some actors would need a powder resembling soot smeared across their faces.
Rochester enjoys teaching her stage makeup class. Students learn techniques to make actors look older, tattooed, or like woodland animals. Injury day is among her favorites, when students learn how to shadow skin to look bruised or like they have a black eye.
“Just make sure you take it off before you go so I don’t get a call from campus security,” she makes sure to tell them on that class day.
UWM theater faculty tag-team costume construction classes
Some students arrived early for the patternmaking class. They pulled supplies from their cubbies and began working on their muslin mock-ups.
Orlenko was the instructor of record for the course, but functionally he and Rochester work as a team. She helped students who missed the previous class catch up to the others while Orlenko dove into the day’s lesson: skirts.
Orlenko showed students gathered around a worktable how to add a dart, how a yoke skirt is constructed and how to add a vent in the back of a pencil skirt. He let them loose to work on their pattern, asking them to make at least one manipulation.
Students work on half-scale mannequins to save money on fabric and take up less space in the costume shop. Still, Orlenko encouraged students to think big.
“Rules are meant to be broken,” he said.
Addie Brown, a junior majoring in theater production, asked the others around her table whether adding a ruffle to her skirt would be too ambitious.
The students shook their heads. No, not too much.
A student at another table asked Rochester if he could miss studio class scheduled later on in the week. He had a dress rehearsal scheduled for “A Rockin’ Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Skylight Music Theatre.
“Bring snacks,” Rochester reminded him after OK’ing the absence. “It’ll be a long day. Oh, and bring a sweater. That stage gets cold.”
Not every students goes on to pursue a professional theater career. Even so, Rochester said the program teaches valuable skills. Students learn to work collaboratively, creatively and on deadline. They also gain an appreciation for the arts they carry throughout their lives.
Rochester also enjoys teaching students sewing, seeing their “a-ha!” moments when the construction finally comes together in their minds.
“For the rest of their lives, they will know how to sew a button,” she said.
Kelly Meyerhofer has covered higher education in Wisconsin since 2018. Contact her at kmeyerhofer@gannett.com or 414-223-5168. Follow her on X (Twitter) at @KellyMeyerhofer.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: UWM theater faculty teach students to transform through costume design
Reporting by Kelly Meyerhofer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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