The Costuming for Fall Production of King Lear

By: Lily Jensen

Everyone wears some kind of costume. The clothing that we choose tells a story about who we are. In any effective stage production, costume serves the same purpose, but on an amplified scale. Audience members know that what we are seeing isn’t real, but we suspend reality to immerse ourselves in the world in front of us. This suspension is designed and achieved partially by the work of costume designers. The actors help us to believe the emotional truths of the performance, but costume designers convince us of the visual and physical ones. 

Summer Jack is the master artist behind this convincing for the theatrical productions at Middlebury. Jack is a professor in the Theatre department and does costume design for the majority of main stage shows, including the Fall 2024 production of King Lear. She has an undergraduate degree in costume design from Arizona State and a graduate degree from the Yale School of Drama. She immediately fell in love with costuming as an opportunity to participate in the theatrical world without being on stage and using her skills in the visual and fiber arts. Jack has been in the industry for over 20 years designing in New York City for operatic and theatrical performances. Jack entered the educational context during the COVID-19 pandemic when all in-person performing arts were shut down. She started with mentoring and on-site teaching. She describes her work at Middlebury as a “natural step” with her passion for costume history, which led her to her current position at Middlebury. She teaches costuming classes, some with a historical lens and some with a production lens. This fall, Jack taught Production Studio, a course in which students help with all aspects of the production. A basic understanding of the story is essential in understanding the costuming process for Shakespeare’s King Lear. At the outset of the play, King Lear decides to divide his land between his daughters and resign from power. To determine the division, he tests the three daughters, challenging them to proclaim how much they love him. The eldest daughters win and receive power, land, and money in return. Following the transaction, both sisters reject their father. He retreats from civil society to the woods in anguish. The youngest daughter who simply could not express how much she loved her father was sent away to marry in France. She returns home more powerful and saves the Kingdom and her father from her selfish sisters. 

Designing a classic Shakespearean play presents unique challenges. Shakespearean often plots involve a lot of interwoven misunderstandings, which Jack says can be difficult to costume because you have to figure out what “their look for this disguise and how do they change their position or their clothing, because that's part of what the story is telling” and that “ Shakespeare also creates great contrast of both characters with high and low stature,” says Jack which makes for a wide variety of kinds of costumes. The characters in Shakespeare do not resemble the Middlebury student actors, so the actor needs “more makeup effects” and “wears a beard.” Because of the many challenging builds, intense quick changes, and a large cast of characters, the theater department is only focusing on King Lear this year, even though they typically have two main stage productions. . This strategy has allowed Summer and her colleagues to focus on committing fully to the spectacle of King Lear.

Despite these challenges, Shakespeare allows for creativity and extravagance from the designer's perspective. Jack explains that there are benefits to these well-known period plays because everyone is familiar with the story so “you can really kind of like get away with more design than if it was a new play.” Because of their dramatic and sometimes magical plots, there is more space for extravagance and artistic risks. However, Jack emphasized that some elements of the plot must stay the same: ““It does have to fit the script.” One example of balancing creativity while still telling the story is through the costuming of the Duke of Burgundy who is clearly motivated by superficial values like power and money. Jack is dressing him in a fun and flamboyant red floral look that is meant to display this superficiality. The look is interesting and creative, while still staying true to the story. 

These provocative looks don’t come together instantly; they require a laborious, long, and thorough process before the audience sees them on stage. This process begins with research Jack says that she often “looks at what people are actually wearing” and sometimes what “they're wearing is really inspirational for this particular piece.” Jack also collects “research pictures” from magazines and the internet to put together a mood-board for the costume. After the preliminary research, the designer and the director meet and to discuss the vision for King Lear.This year, they “really wanted it to feel kind of fashion-forward” drawing inspiration from the Met Gala and red-carpet gowns, maintaining the same elevation of royalty with a modern twist. The director and designer also talked about the role of women in the play. “It's just really about how women fit into society and we're always kind of expected to be on display.” Next, Jack renders sketches of potential costumes.  Because of King Lear’s complex characters, most of them have multiple costumes. For the sisters “we wanted them to start off in these kind of soft and pretty Met Gala gowns, and then go into these much more powerful lady outfits when they get their power and lands.” After developing these looks, Jack looks to source the costumes, determining whether they are being created, bought, or reused from a previous production. The lack of stores in Vermont makes this a difficult process.  Jack still refers to this element as “fun problem solving” even though “every day there's a different problem.” After the costumes are fitted and ready, actors showcase how costumes look on stage, after which Summer makes alterations. 

All of this creativity is not possible without the Middlebury costume shop. A whole team of people contribute to bringing the creative vision to life. About 10-20% of the costumes are made custom by the costume shop but Robin Foster Cole, the director of the costume shop, says they “spend 60% of [their] time on the builds. And then you'll go see it and you'll realize that some of these dresses that we're spending a ton of time on will be on stage for five minutes.” But Jack argues that these five minutes are essential because when “a character walks on stage, you have about like 30 seconds before they actually open their mouth to kind of know exactly who they are.” A lot of the sewing is done by students involved in the costume shop work-study program. Katie Knauber, associate costume director, works with hair and makeup and teaches students about how to do quick changes. She said that “during the show it's a lot of making sure that you know where each actor is going to be when, and then making sure you know where their clothes are going to be and where you need your actors to be and where you need the clothes to be” It takes work from a lot of people, each with their own expertise, to costume King Lear. 

Costume design is a distinguished art form. Jack comments on the banality of certain costumes, because costuming is about “making sure they look right for the script, and they look right for the emotional state they're supposed to be in and their situation and circumstances.” She also says that costuming is not subject to the same “arbitrary fashion rules” and the ever-changing “fashion cycle.” Costuming is the art of crafting a narrative for the audience by means of stage and performance. 

Jack compares designing King Lear to solving a puzzle.  Crafting a look for a character “helps advance the story forward a whole lot faster,” because it allows the audience to have an “I know who that is” moment before the dialogue begins. These moments are only made possible through problem solving behind the scenes. 

Once the curtain comes up, this storytelling is only impactful when it reaches an audience. Even though Shakespeare is typically associated with elitist culture now, in its conception it was geared to an audience of all socio-economic status. When a Shakespearean story comes to life on stage transcending the confusing and difficult text, it becomes accessible to a wider audience. What makes the theatrical story accessible is partially due to the work of the actors, but it is also due to the spectacle of the performance like sets, lights, and costumes. Costumes are more than the razzle-dazzle quality that they bring to a show, they are integral to making an impact on the audience.