The allegorical novella written by George Orwell, Animal Farm will be brought to life next month. Students involved in the production are currently capturing the essence of the characters from both behind the scenes and on stage.

Costume designs are vital for theater productions because they allow for more effective character immersion. The costumes are not only beneficial to the actors but also engaging for the audience as they view the characters in a realistic form. The student costume designers need to ensure the costumes are as accurate as they can be to the book and still visually appealing, by balancing the actors’ costume needs and the aesthetic of the production. 

Senior Riona Sheahan, who portrays a cow in the ensemble, has an easier time accomplishing the role in costume. 

“For Animal Farm specifically, we are playing animals, not humans. So getting into costume is like putting on the skin of our character and it’s a better way of further embodying who we´re representing,” said Sheahan.

The procedure of costume design begins with having a vision and then turning that vision into reality. 

¨At the very beginning of the process, you just make the image board and make sure it all blends well together and doesn’t clash or anything like that. So that the aesthetic matches what fits the individual characters,¨ said Holley.

There are not that many challenges that follow with costume design; however, it can be stressful at times. Costume design is a very innovative process from recycling materials and being crafty.

“I haven’t bought any materials, at all. So I´ve been purposely recycling stuff that we already have or clothes. For one of the costumes, I got four-ish pairs of black jeans, ripped them up, and made a cool denim jacket out of it,” said Holley.

Actors and designers collaborate to aid one another to make sure the costume supports the actor, enhances the story, sets the scene, has visual appeal, and is symbolic to represent the character’s theme, tone, and traits. 

¨Generally, the fitting tends to be quite accurate and if not it´s a simple ´Hey I’m concerned about this, this is the measurement that is wrong´ and then the costume designer is fully receptive to that and does whatever they can to make it fit us,¨ said Sheahan.

Costume designers will get input from actors on what the costume is lacking.

¨It’s not necessarily telling the costume director what to do because they come up with a general idea of what we´ll be wearing. If they’re unsure about certain things, we´ll tell them certain character traits that we have, to help embody the costume. It’s a collaboration where it is like trial and error to figure out what would work best to suit each character,¨  said Sheahan.

The portrayal of Animal Farm will present the audience with its notable satire and symbolism, but also create appreciation for who creates and who wears the costumes. From Oct. 23rd to the 26th our theater department will be performing Animal Farm so buy tickets here to witness the hard work of everyone involved and the talent of our theater department.