By
Shaun Clayton
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Red's Riding Hood doesn't come from Wal-Mart
In the production of plays, it is often the actor or actress who gets all the attention. However, there are also those people who work behind the scenes, without whom the actor would not be lit, on a stage or clothed.
One such crew member is theater production senior Mariah Bowers, an assistant costume designer for the UA production of "Into the Woods."
The costume design team for any school production moves forward with the creative process as soon as the play has been selected by the University of Arizona theater department, Bowers said.
"There's a lot of meetings that happen," she said. "There's an initial concept meeting, everyone getting to know who's who and such, and the direction that we're going to go in general, the style, whatever."
The costume design team conducts a significant amount of research for every play to make sure the costume at least conveys the proper sense of style, character and time period.
Even for a timeless fantasy like "Into the Woods," the costume department tries to put enough familiar historical elements into the production to help ground the audience.
"It's a little bit of every period mixed together," Bowers said. "Anything that's historic is in here. We have the hoop skirts, and then we have the simple country petticoat and a little bit of the medieval feel with Rapunzel and Cinderella's mother - some long clean lines in that."
After the actors are fitted for their costumes, a scavenger hunt for costumes begins.
While the costume shop does have a considerable wardrobe stored in the bowels of Marroney Theater, when there is not a particular kind of costume handy, it must either be made, bought or, more often than not, rented, Bowers said.
Bowers, along with the rest of the costume crew, pays a heavy toll for her craft.
"For about the four to seven hours that I'm sleeping, I'm not here, and the four hours that I'm in class, I'm not here, and every other time, I'm here - literally," she said.
However, the times when she gets to be creative are moments Bowers said she lives for. In particular, she has a fondness for making costumes look like they have been through Hell's own spin-cycle, more commonly known as "distressing."
"I love to distress costumes," Bowers said wistfully. "Take something you've worked hard on - it's all beautiful and stitched up - and just tear the heck out of it, splatter paint on it and make it look all bloody and old. I love that. I do like it when I get to do creative parts like that."
