“ I got into costume design in an odd way. It was because someone died. I was taking a class, Intro to Theatre, and the teacher told us me that the director of our upcoming play had died. The director’s family wanted to continue with the play and wanted a volunteer to to help them, so I raised my hand,” Johnson said.
Ever since then, Johnson has been working in the theatre department, designing costumes and teaching students how to do the same.
“To start on a shows costumes, you first take lead from the director to make sure of the historic time period of the play, and then they will decide the style they want the costumes to be. After that, I read the plays script six to seven times and start collaborating with the other costume designers. We do research and share what we find with each other,” Johnson said.
The designing comes later, after each designer does research on the plays time period to make sure that costumes are historically accurate.
“After the research we begin to actually sketch the costumes and then we run them by the director to get them approved. Buying the fabric comes after the designs are approved, or sometimes we pull costumes out of our stock. We keep costumes that we use for all our plays so that they can be used later if possible,” Johnson said.
To be a strong costume designer, one has to take many classes that are not related to theatre.
“I took many courses in history and literature, and they helped a lot. Also, I learned to saw [wood] as a young girl, which prepared me for costume design,” Johnson said.
Another important job in the technical theater category is stage managing. Krystle Henninger, a Harrisonburg High School alumni, has gone from stage managing plays at the high school level to stage managing at her college, Belmont University.
“Stage managing entails making sure that the production runs as smoothly as possible. Basically, if it’s done in the theatre, at some point I end up doing it whether it be filling in for actors, taking notes, running the show, calling light/sound/fly cues, and organizing all aspects of the production. I’ve also worked on sound, sound editing, designing, that sort of thing,” Henninger explained.
Henninger started stage managing plays at HHS her freshman year and fell in love with it.
“I never really wanted to be a stage manager, but I was given the opportunity by Mr. Walton [media secretary and spring play director at HHS] as a freshman and when I did it, I absolutely loved it. I knew that it was what I wanted to do with my life,” Henninger said.
Nowadays, Henninger stage manages plays at Belmot University, a job she has been doing since her freshman year.
“With every show I do, I gain more knowledge and experience about technical theater. After Belmont, I want to go to grad school for stage management and hopefully work on a show on Broadway. At least that’s my goal,” Henniger said.
According to both women, having high hopes is good when going into any field or career.
“My advice to any student who wants to go into technical theater would be to do you homework and remain hungry for what it takes. Be keen and observant and have a lot of persistence,” Johnson advised.
