Children's playhouse volunteer helps ensure the actors look the part

The Bigfork Summer Playhouse costume shop was quiet, except for the sound of the heater clanking away in the corner, as Shannon Barrett sorted through racks of clothes.

Names written in Sharpie stuck out of the top the garments, which will be worn in the upcoming Bigfork Playhouse Children’s Theatre Production of Camp Rock.

Unlike the workers that inhabit the costume shop in the summer, Barrett has no formal costume design training, or much of a background in theatre; but she has been ensuring actors in the Bigfork Playhouse Children’s theatre look the part for the last five years.

Barrett has been volunteering for the Children’s theatre for 13 years, and has become the theatre’s costumer and unofficial off-season costume shop manager.

Barrett first got involved with the Children’s Theatre when her daughter, a third grader at the time, was cast in a play. She noticed that Brach Thomson, the theatre’s artistic director could use some help.

“I just saw that Brach was kind of juggling everything,” she said. She started seeing what needed to be done and recruited other parents to help.

Though her daughter stopped participating in the theatre after middle school, Barrett has kept volunteering. Her daughter has now graduated from college.

“I feel so strongly about the importance of our children’s theatre to our community,” she said. “I’m going to keep on helping out as long as I can.”

The Children’s Theatre once had a costumer whom Barrett volunteered with. When that costumer quit about five years ago, Barrett took over.

“I didn’t even know how to sew,” she said. Since then, she has learned a lot about putting together a look for the stage.

Before Barrett starts pulling costume pieces, she reads the script and then sits down with Thomson and he tells her what his vision is for each character. “He gives me descriptions of how he sees that character and then I scrounge around and see what I can find to make that character look how he wants,” she said.

Over the years, the Children’s Theatre has accumulated a store of costume pieces. When Barrett can’t find something she needs in their store, or in the Summer Playhouse stock, she hits thrift stores or recruits a friend to help her sew something. She is usually able to costume a show for about $100.

Barrett also enlists help from other parents, altering costumes and putting pieces together.

“I do have a lot of support in that regard,” she said.

Much of the sewing Barrett does on costumes is temporary alterations, particularly to items from the Summer Playhouse. She converts them to fit children, and then converts them back so they are ready to go in the summer.

Her costumes aren’t has elaborate as the Summer Theatre’s, but she makes sure they look good on stage. 

“We try to keep it simple with the Children’s Theatre,” she said. 

Costumes for Camp Rock brought about a new challenge for Barrett. The play is set in modern times, so Barrett let the actors bring in some of their own clothes to wear as costumes — that’s something, she said, she never normally does.

Though Barrett tries to envision the costumes as a whole, she never knows how the whole picture will look until she sees it on stage during the first dress rehearsal. “I’m always a little shocked,” she said. “Because you just never know if it will all look good together.” 

Barrett spends 100 to 200 hours on costumes for each show, volunteering her time outside of her regular job. 

One of the major challenges she faces costuming the children’s theatre is finding time to get all the actors into the shop for their fittings and working with the actors’ busy schedules, especially those who come from other towns.

Between fittings on Wednesday, she went through bags of old clothes someone donated to the Playhouse, pulling out pieces that are like nothing else in the shop, and items that they would never use.

She makes sure everything is organized and put away, so she knows where everything is when it comes time for the Children’s Theatre shows.

After five years Barrett has costumed a fair number of shows, but her favorite was Peter Pan at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season.

Barrett said it is amazing to watch what being part of the theatre can do for some of the youth involved. Not only does it give them a place to belong, but it teaches them confidence, she said.

“It brings people out of their shell,” Barrett said. “Then I see them as really high functioning, well-rounded adults.

“I think that Bigfork is really lucky. We have a legacy of theatre and the arts and I love that about our town.”