Local costumer takes on massive stage production

PALMER - Roxann Benbow jokes that she's not exactly certain what motivates her to design and build costumes for local stage productions.

"Sometimes I asked that question myself because it's pretty much a volunteer job," she said with a laugh.

But, in the end, motivation is a simple thing for her.

"I really love the costuming, and I love sewing," she said.

She's going to need most of that love and motivation. Benbow has signed up to outfit Valley Performing Arts' production of "The Wizard of Oz," which opens in two months. The show's director, Larry Bottjen, said the production is the largest VPA has ever attempted in just about every way. It's more technically difficult, requires a larger bigger cast and there are more set changes.

"We want to be able to bring to the Valley people what they expect," he said.

On the costuming end, Benbow said, it entails something on the order of 124 to 130 costumes.

Bottjen said that number has recently changed.

"We picked up a couple more munchkins last week. They were so darn cute I couldn't say no," he said.

At any rate, all but a few of the costumes will likely have to be made from scratch.

"I've probably gotten over 500 yards of fabric right now sitting at my house," she said.

And we're not talking about simple costumes, either. Take, for example, the Winkie Guards, the Wicked Witch of the West's henchmen. Benbow said she has to heat-press together three-layer emblems, multiple examples of which are on each uniform. She had to get something to simulate the metal buttons on their uniforms. And then there are the ropes that secure various parts of the costume together. They're red and rope-like.

"I couldn't find anything that would be similar," Benbow said, until she met a woman at the Alaska State Fair this summer. "This gal actually crochets a type of a rope that is made into those braided rugs."

Benbow said she enlisted the woman's help and she's producing the ties right now.

"It takes three of those for each one of those costumes," she said.

Benbow said she's got a crew of 14 working with her, four of them students at her sewing school, ASC School of Sewing. One is her husband. She has one seamstress just sewing together petticoats for the full skirts on the munchkin girls.

"She's done about 10 so far we need about 30," Benbow said. "She's like, ‘Ugh! Enough with the petticoats!'"

It's a lot of work, Benbow said, but she thinks it's crucial work.

"The costumes make the play," she said.

It can be subtle, but costumes can make a stage play more or less engrossing, drawing audiences in or pushing them away.

And she really enjoys the challenges the work presents. Benbow went to college to learn how to modify patterns for making clothing. She puts that skill to use quite a bit overseeing the costumers.

A good example of how that fits into costuming is the outfit for the hairdresser that does up the Cowardly Lion in a scene in the Emerald City. Benbow said she started with a skirt a waitress might have worn in the 1950s. Think poodle skirt.

"I had to change it to incorporate oversized cups on the sleeves and the collar and then the skirt has some special details that are not in a normal circle skirt," Benbow said.

She also modified how the skirt relates to the petticoat underneath it to make the costume look just right.

In addition to giving her a chance to use all those things she learned in school, Benbow said costuming lets her work on a lot of projects she might not otherwise get to do.

"Usually when you're sewing there has to be a reason that you're making something, so you don't get to make some of the unique things or have some of the challenges that come with making costumes for this play," Benbow said.

You might have seen her work if you caught Valley Performing Arts' production of "Babes in Toyland" in 2009. Benbow said that production required between 70 and 90 costumes, a lot of which were cobbled together by modifying costumes in VPA's basement.

What about that most memorable of "Wizard of Oz" costumes, the Tin Man?

Benbow said she actually found a guy in Soldotna with a Tin Man costume.

"If you really, really think that you can use it without damaging it you can use it," the guy told her. But turns out it didn't fit the actor cast in the part.

Benbow said her husband and a woman who works with metal are building a new one out of sheet metal.

"Besides doing the Tin Man, he helps get a lot of other things going on - getting fabric into the house and making sure that there's room to set up all the sewing tables and putting up with me at 2 o'clock in the morning coming to bed," she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.