Costumes for a PPU's A Light in the Piazza

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By Aldona Bird

Photography by Aldona Bird

As Michael Montgomery lays out and cuts yards of fabric, a cacophony fills the cluttered room—sewing machines whirr, a steam iron hisses, and a laptop plays songs from musicals– in the Pittsburgh Playhouse Costume Shop. Montgomery, Shop manager, has been designing and assembling costumes for Light in the Piazza, PPU’s latest theater production.

Montgomery, 46, began working with costumes when he was in Thomas Jefferson High School in Rockford Illinios. His mother had taught him to sew, so when a high-school theater production needed costumes made, he volunteered. He has been making costumes ever since, for the last 17-18 years as a costume designer. Montgomery began working at the Pittsburgh Playhouse 5-6 years ago, has designed a dozen odd shows there, and has been officially on staff for 2 years.

Montgomery loves what he does because “My work is always different, everyday. I have to spend a lot of time researching different things.”

While the process of building a show for a costume designer differs for each show, generally Montgomery goes through certain steps when working on a show. First he reads the script, then meets with the director, reads the script again, trades ideas with the director and breaks down the script. He then begins research, and finds out the time span and the type of people the characters are (how often they would change outfits), figures out the time of year/weather. After that Montgomery make lots of lists and puts pencil to paper and start sketching. After doing some planning he talks again to the director, considers the budget, decides whether to make, buy, or borrow costumes. Then he begins assembling “closets” for the characters, fits the costumes on actors, alters the costumes, gathers shoes, works on hair and the finally has the dress rehearsal.

For Light in the Piazza Montgomery designed and made costumes, chosen and customized accessories such as hats, shoes and jewelry, and organized the entire outfitting of the cast. He researched the time period, the 50s, what type of clothing, underwear, jewelry, people where wearing, location and weather of the play, and then incorporated individuality and a personal touch to each character’s costume

With the help of two other full time sewers and designers, one part time, one over-hire, 10-15 students, a wig department, and hair and make-up professionals, Montgomery began devoting all his attention to A Light in the Piazza about three weeks before it opened on March 26th. He started thinking about it, and doing minor planning last summer, taking inventory of what they had, what they might need to borrow, and what to make from scratch. Montgomery began concrete work on the show in January.

The Costume Shop already had most of the costumes needed for A Light in the Piazza, and borrowed a few from CMU’s theater department. Some, such as for the priests, cardinals, nuns and a few dresses, the costumers made from scratch.

Montgomery said his favorite costume was for the character of Fabrizio Naccarelli, a young Italian man, in a scene where he goes to a tie shop, and asks for something to make him look really good for his meeting with his crush. During the song and dance number the shop’s staff put pieces of clothing on Fabrizio and take them off again. Montgomery made conscious effort to make sure everything they put on looked good by itself, but not look quite perfect when on him with all the other items.

“…Until the very very end when they put a coat on him, and none of it really matches, but they put the coat on him and all the sudden the whole costume pulls together, just like that. And he suddenly looks just a little bit cuter than he did 5 minutes earlier” Montgomery said.

After weeks of sewing, gathering dresses suits and accessories, fittings, planning and meetings the cast and crew have their first dress rehearsal. The actors have about an hour to get ready before running through the show. Montgomery rushes between the Costume Shop, two levels of dressing rooms and the stage helping students adjust costumes, working out last minute difficulties, calling instructions to crewmembers, and checking how the outfits look on stage. The halls in the Pittsburgh Playhouse between the dressing rooms, stage and Costume Shop are full of student actors running around looking for parts of costumes, adjusting hats and wigs in the mirrors, practicing lines and talking to Montgomery about any issues they have with their costumes. Students mutter phrases like “Oh crap, I should go over my ad-libs… my Italian ad-libs” or randomly break into song as they put on gloves, 50s period dresses, suits, shoes and wigs.

“I am always very particular about the kind of underwear” Montgomery said, because it affects the silhouettes of the actors. For this show he wanted to accentuate small waists on the women, so he made sure to pad all their hips and busts.

“I’m very happy with it. There were a couple of things I did that I’d never tried before” Montgomery said in regard to the outcome of and the overall success of the costumes for The Point Park production of A Light in the Piazza.

Aldona Bird works as a sewer in the Playhouse Costume Shop. She can be reached at ambird@pointpark.edu