Brownell Talbot’s recent production of Hades Town truly contained some of the most intensive work behind the scenes. Much of the choreography, set, and lights were all meticulously designed by students in the theatre department. I was part of the costuming team and this year I became much more involved with the creative processes. My experience with the dressing and production of costumes in this show covers almost three months of work, where I stayed after school for two hours about three times a week and spend my Saturdays, from 9 A.M to 5 P.M, at school. The production came out beautifully and the photos I studied were taken by Marc Longbrake.

I was personally most involved in the costuming of Persephone, played by junior Mahalet Kinde. The dress pictured above was initially only going to be worn during curtain call, a black velvet dress instead for her time in the underworld. But weeks into rehearsal, Ms. Morgan proposed that she only have 2 dresses, to which I agreed. And so began my most significant weeks of work. The black lace trim around the neckline, back, and dropped waist were all added to the dress (sourced from the original mourning dress we had decided not to use), kindly sewn on by Ella Anderson (8th) and Mali Shrader (7th).

My time was spent beading the sleeves. Though not particularly visible within the photos I studied, the sleeves on this dress are dense, ruffled layers that create the entirety of the volume. I spend an estimate of 3.5-4 weeks (around 12 hours a week) on one sleeve, individually beading each of these layers densely and thoroughly. By the time I had even begun finishing this, it was tech week and our production was that coming Friday and I, technically, had not even finished one sleeve. I took the dress home and, combined with my time during rehearsals, finished around 3 weeks worth of work in 3 nights. Because Persephone didn’t have a quick change until late into act 1, I used that time to bead all the way through opening night 2 songs before her quick change.

This first dress is what I started with when I began working after school officially. This was primarily tailoring and fixing adjustments to fit Mahalet. Ms. Morgan added a slit for ease of movement, and made the executive decision to cut the sleeves short. This was a particularly difficult decision because the dress was a handmade, vintage, and designer dress.

The coat was introduced to me much later, by the time I had already been beading her second dress. Initially we planned to dip dye the sleeves and bottom of the coat, but did not end up having time for that.

Hermes, played by senior AJ Puskar, had a costume created by a professional seamstress. Ms. Morgan made a point for the gods to stand out against the uniforms of the workers and humans. The Brownell Talbot student costuming department did not have a direct part in the creation of this costume, making it a pleasant surprise to both AJ and the team. The only issues that occured with his suit was the clasp in the front of his jacket (visible in the photos where he and Mahalet dance). It came undone multiple times due to a loose clasp. As well as this, one leaf came loose and fell off of his back one night, thankfully and smoothly retrieved by Gail Hartig (ensemble).

The costume of Hades, played by junior Ahaan Gulati, was also created by her. There were no issues regarding his costume during the show, however he often needed assistance with his jacket between scenes.

The Fates (juniors Addy Hanes and Corbett Lanum, freshman Adrisha Kumar) had the most detailed and difficult costumes in the show. Ms. Morgan designed each one to be different and specially suited to the student who was wearing it, addind the fabric details herself. Mali Shrader did much of the detailing on these costumes, using the sewing machine the bulk of the skirts as well as hand stitching the greenery on the dress bodice and mic packs. Most of the time, when I worked, she was working as well.

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