Costume design is a perfect fit for Laurel Schultz ’07

Mileham, Mardi

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From Dolls to Real Actors

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Linfield Magazine Volume 3 Number 3 Winter 2007 Article 6 Winter 2007 From Dolls to Real Actors Mardi Mileham Linfield College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine Recommended Citation Mileham, Mardi (2007) "From Dolls to Real Actors," Linfield Magazine: Vol. 3 : No. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/linfield_magazine/vol3/iss3/6 This article is brought to you for free via open access, courtesy of DigitalCommons@Linfield. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@linfield.edu. Laurel Schultz ’07 has come along way from making doll clothesto creating all the costumes for aLinfield theatre production. Sherecently completed her first solocostume design for the play MotherCourage.By opening night, she haddesigned and  produced costumesfor 15 actors, spending well over 100hours from start to finish, includingone entire night in the costumeshop.Although Schultz, an art majorand English and theatre minor fromRoseburg, has assisted with cos-tumes for Woyzeck, Macbeth andAntigone, this was the first time shewas responsible for an entire play.She has found that the theatre is theperfect outlet for her fascinationwith period costumes.“With art, much of your inspira-tion comes to you in your studio,”she said.“But with theatre, it’s collab-orative - you are working with thedirector, the lighting designer and thescenic designer. All of these peoplecome together to create something.Everyone is bouncing ideas off eachother, and I really like that.”Her designs for Mother Courageinvolved input from Kate Hawkes,the play’s director, and Ty Marshall,professor of theatre arts and directorof theatre who was the scenic andlighting designer. Schultz did exten-sive research on World War I-erafashion and developed a colorpalette that she and Marshall used inboth the set and the costumes. Sheinitially produced sketches beforecompleting her final renderings.Then came the painstakingwork of producing the costumes.Schultz purchased the fabric, madethe patterns and supervised thesewing with three other studentswho helped produce the final cos-tumes. She felt fortunate that shewas able to rent most of the militaryuniforms, although she did designthe military insignia used on theuniforms and on a rug in the set.Some of the characters present-ed challenges in the design process.“Some roles were harder tovisualize because they didn’t have alot of lines, so it was difficult to geta feel for their character and whatthey looked like,” Schultz said.Making the patterns was also achallenge. With no formal trainingin pattern making, she used parts ofpatterns the theatre had in stock andmade up the rest.“I had never done it before, butit turned out pretty well,” she saidwith a laugh.Schultz has a good eye for theart, for design and for putting every-thing together, said Marshall, thedirector of the theatre arts program.“She has the talent, the atten-tion to detail and the artistic tools tonot only design the costumes, but tomake them become a reality,” hesaid.“She understands the charactersand what an actor needs to helpbring those characters to life. Shehas patience and works very wellwith the actors and with otherdesigners on the production team. Ihave great respect for her work andwhat she brings to the table as adesigner.”Schultz got a taste of profession-al theatre last summer when sheinterned at the Oregon ShakespeareFestival in Ashland, working in boththe rental and costume shops. Inaddition to working on the festival’sweb pages, she helped build cos-tumes, spending two days hemminga giant cape for the production ofKing John.Her designs for Mother Couragewill be entered in the regional com-petition of the American CollegeTheatre Festival, and this spring shewill design the costumes for theSalem Repertory Theatre’s produc-tion of Steve Martin’s Underpants.The work of costume design ischallenging and can be stressful, yetFromdolls toreal actorsCostume design is a perfect fit Final sketches of two costumes from Mother Courage.1 2   -   L I N F I E L D  M A G A Z I N Eall of it is fun, Schultz said.“Seeing my pictures and thedesigns on stage as real costumes wasreally cool,” she said. “The render-ings I have of Mother Courage andhow Katie (Dolph ’08 in the titlerole) looks on stage are really similar.It’s exciting because it looked justlike I wanted it. The conceptbecame reality.”– Mardi MilehamLaurel Schultz ‘07 takes another meas-urement before she begins pinning thepattern and cutting the fabric. She hasbeen working in the costume shop sinceher freshman year, beginning with TheCrucible. This fall, she created all thecostumes for the Linfield production ofMother Courage.Laurel Schultz ‘07 tightens the corset on Jessica Bagley ‘09 in the dressing room. In addition to designing and building the costumes, Schultz also assisted as needed,fixing hair or helping the actors dress.W I N T E R  2 0 0 7 -   1 3

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