The Resourceful Outfit That Dresses Up SCR

They’ll strip the color from a cotton-rayon blend if it’s not exactly the right hue. They scour bolt after bolt of fabric in search of that perfect print for a down-and-out singer’s vest or trim to enhance a pair of women’s evening bedroom slippers.

These are the details that theatergoers may not notice but that have been painstakingly discussed, sketched and fretted over by the costume department at South Coast Repertory. After all, they say, it’s the clothes that make the character.

As the five-week run of SCR’s “The Philanderer” winds down, the costume department already has shifted gears from Edwardian England corsets, bustles and frills to the simple Depression-era cotton housedresses to be worn in their upcoming production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “The Piano Lesson.”

Sandwiched between that, they are quick to point out, was Sam Shepard’s contemporary play “True West” about dirt-stained bums from Riverside.

“It’s actually very refreshing to go from one period to the other,” said Amy Hutto, costume shop manager for the Costa Mesa-based theater.

The costumer shop is always buzzing with seamstresses stitching, pattern cutters cutting and designers fussing over mannequins. Their desks are sewing machines. Their tools: rainbow colored palettes of thread, tape measures and pin cushions. And they’re always at the ready during performances for that occasional busted button or torn seat of the pants.

“They are always working here,” says Seret Scott, director of “The Piano Lesson,” a story of the African-American experience in the 1930s. “If it looks good on the stage, then that means it was tailored here at the shop within an inch of its life. It’s always such a fluid place.”

Part of the fun of the costume shop is the hunt and find. After weeks of looking for that perfect silk tie, 1930s-era shoe or a photograph of a railway chef’s hat, it’s pure “Eureka!”

“It took us three weeks to find it and five minutes to make it,” costume designer Dione H. Lebhar said of a photograph she needed to help design a chef’s hat for the play.

Her search for the proverbial needle in a haystack had taken her to the Internet, books, antique shops and thrift stores. Finally, she stumbled onto the National History of Railroads--an all volunteer organization that answers its telephone once a week.

If all goes well for Lebhar, Hutto and the costume department crew during the theater’s hectic, revolving schedule--SCR has two stages--their handiwork blends into the background. “If people come away talking about costumes,” Hutto said, “we probably did something wrong.”

Still, there is the challenge of outfitting an entire cast so well that the actors effortlessly slip into character as easily as they slip on their costumes.

Nearly every garment SCR actors wear--down to their undergarments, in some cases--was “built” at the costume shop.

Take, for example, the “The Piano Lesson’s” individual costumes for members of a poor African-American family. These costumes had to be especially accurate, Hutto said, because the period has been documented in photographs and film. They are fresh in our minds, she said.

“For turn-of-the-century costumes, we can fudge it a little bit. But if it’s within recent memory, people will point out if you’re wrong.”

The process starts with research and planning. Patterns are cut from paper, then made first out of muslin for the actor’s first fitting. Fabrics are then selected--and in the case of “The Piano Lesson”--repeatedly washed and bleached to get a well-worn look. Prints were even turned inside out so as not to be too bright or cheerful. “They washed their clothes with lye back then,” Hutto said. “We’ve got to be accurate.”

Quite a switch from “The Philanderer’s” lush velvets and iridescent silks. Hutto estimated each costume from that play cost about $2,000. So specialized are they, that if torn, they are repaired immediately with the actor still in them. Each night, they are freshened with a washing and ironing, if needed, and dry-cleaned weekly.

“Philanderer” costume designer Walker Hicklin has switched gears too. He’s now following up his 20th assignment for SCR with an unrelated television pilot set in contemporary times.

“I like skipping from one kind of world to the next,” Hicklin said. “It’s like you are taking a new journey.”

Just as Lebhar is scrambling before “The Piano Lesson’s” Oct. 22 opening, Hicklin is busy researching. This time, he need only look to his hometown of New York.

“I spend my time walking the streets, like I’m invisible,” he says. “I just want to look at people in the subway, in the park or at the museum. . . . I just take my observations and translate that into theater and hope it serves the production as best it can.”