Elaborate costumes at TSF
By LESTER MURRAY news2@kilgorenewsherald.com

News Herald Photo by Lester Murray Kelly Gilson, a Texas Shakespeare Festival intern works on a piece of costume for the play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

There is no job to small or complex for people to pitch in and get it done to bring East Texans the Texas Shakespeare Festival.

So when the job wardrobe intern is mentioned, some people might think, wow, I don't think I want that job, well Kelly Gilson from Mississippi is just the opposite.

Gilson said the wardrobe intern has to account for every piece of costume worn by each actor in each play, after each performance. "This sometimes is hard because when an actor gets done with two performances that day the last thing they want to hear is "I need your gloves, boots, jewelry and so on," said Gilson. "I have to bag each accessory that goes with the costume and it must be hung up together and all pieces of the costume must have the actors name in it."

Another challenge is the quickchange said Gilson. "When an actor has to change costumes in the play, sometimes there is literally only 13 seconds for this to happen," said Gilson. "I must have each costume ready for them to get into and then I must account for each costume taken off and keep everything organized for the next performance."

Every actor is measured, from hands to feet, and from those measurements I must fit each actor with boots and gloves, hats and belts and if we don't have it, I have to find it said Gilson.

Joel Ebarb, costume shop supervisor and a 19 year veteran of the TSF said under normal circumstances for four plays, the shop has one week per show to make the costumes, but this year is a little different. "We still have the same amount of time, but the play "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" is a massive production with 30 of the 34 actors performing which means many, many costumes," said Ebarb. "In that play there are some parts that have 12 of the same costume."

Ebarb said what is fortunate about this year is that costumes for "1776" and "Julius Ceaser" have very little costume work, so the shop was able to complete the costumes for these two plays in one week. "We also were able to use costumes, or parts of in the very large inventory of costumes from the TSF from past plays," said Ebarb.

For the Royal Hunt of the Sun there were so many costumes which required a great deal of material I did most of the material purchases in advance of arriving in Kilgore said Ebarb. "Normally we try and purchase all of our materials locally, but with the quantities needed for this play, and the many different colors, I felt I needed to get the material in advance to keep us on schedule," said Ebarb.