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Photos by Bob Pennell Stitchers Susanne Eneya, left, and Jeanne LeGrand put final touches on a coat to be worn by the character Brasantio in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of "Othello." The play opens the festival's 1999 season tonight. Their art is their sleeves By MELISSA SCHUKAR ASHLAND -- When most are starting shopping lists for holiday dinners, Deborah Dryden is loading up on fabrics. Lots of them. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival's resident designer hits the major fabric markets of Los Angeles and New York late each fall, part of the process that brings festival costumes from meeting notes to finished product. "People think it's glamorous," Dryden said of her buying trips. "But it's some of the most exhausting periods (of work)." Building a costume, as it's called in the theater, is by no means a single person's mission. It's teamwork from start to finish, involving as many as 50 people at the height of the season -- designers like Dryden, drapers, stitchers, dyers and others whose sole job is keeping actors well-dressed. Work on a season's costumes starts about six months before the plays open. For example, the process for dressing cast members in ``Othello," which opens tonight in previews, started in September. Initial meetings involve the director, designers of scenery, lighting and costumes, the composer and dramaturgical team -- and a slew of ideas regarding how the play will look. Designers then collect images -- photos, paintings, historical materials -- that help hone in on what's right for the characters. From thick notebooks of such images, designers make sketches of each costume. The drawings go to the drapers in the costume shop, who work from the sketches to craft a pattern. "It's an art form," Dryden said. "They're amazing at what they do." Draper Vivienne Friedman said she's helped by the rapport she and Dryden share when sketches come her way. "We have a real vocabulary established, because we've done this for so long," she said, her fingers flying over sketches augmented with notes about fiddleback shaping, pleating and other details of an elegant gown. The draper's and the designer's relationship is important, Friedman said, and they work closely to ensure costumes match what was developed in the fall's design meetings. "Her (Dryden's) concept travels over to my patterning," she said, noting that "Othello" costumes feature "classic lines with modern sensibilities." Three drapers worked to clothe the Moor, Desdemona and their compatriots, Friedman said, and each has a special expertise. Friedman, who owned a couture studio in California, specializes in women's clothing; another draper's strength is in men's tailoring; the third took on the work of the soldiers' gear. By December, mockups of costumes are made. These are made of less-expensive fabrics for actors to try on when they arrive in town. Major changes in a costume can then be made before the final garments are built. After all, the designers are on a budget. Dryden said she's given her limits by the costume shop manager at the beginning of each season. That forces her to be a little creative when shopping for fabric and other items. "Out of the budget comes everything the actor wears," Dryden said, stressing the "everything." That means providing a costume from the bottom up -- girdles, corsets, petticoats, hose, linings, belts, shoes and boots, armor. And the underneath is just as important as the outerwear. Drapers carefully build a garment from the inside out, working to obtain a certain silhouette, drape or shape special to each part. "In clothing for the theater, there is a lot more inner structure than in street clothes," Friedman said. "Boned bodices, interfaces ... all that helps create a shape. Cutters (another term for drapers) determine that technology and monitor the sewing work and maintain quality control." But costumes must not only serve the play, they must serve multiple wearings by actors who run, jump, fight, swoon and slide. Dryden takes the action into account as well when designing. Pants, for instance, take a real beating, so they get reinforced knees and triple stitching. This year's Othello (actor Derrick Lee Weeden) gets three of one particular shirt, because one won't last, Dryden said. Garments must also stand up to -- in some cases -- more than 100 performances, quick changes, dry cleaning and laundering. "Linings take a beating," Friedman said. "Costumes get a lot of wear. They get a workout." During dress rehearsals, designers and others from the costume shop get a chance to see how the garments do their jobs -- and enhance the actors'. "Dress rehearsals are a vigorous time," Dryden said. "You have to see it all come together ... you try to anticipate as much as possible, but ultimately you don't know how it's going to work until all the pieces are there. "You have to be able to turn on a dime." "We take notes on everything," Friedman said. "Is something too long? Is something too short? Do they (actors) have trouble getting in and out of something? "Is something too tight? Is something too loose? Once you put a show into action, there are always things no one was able to anticipate." Dryden said a "remarkable moment" comes when the costume builders see how their creations work. "You see what the actor is doing with that garment, in that garment, that establishes a clarity of theatrical moment. "If it's separate from what the actor is doing, it's not successful." The moment is an exciting one for the costume shop, Friedman said. "Most of us are so engaged with whatever our individual task is, it's exciting to see it all together," she said. "Especially at the top of the season when you haven't done a show for a while. "It always amazes me. It's always a surprise." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA