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Dressing the parts
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| PAULA KERR, Herald
News Staff Reporter |
January
26, 2003 |
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Herald
News Photos by JACK FOLEY
| When it
comes to dressing up, even dressing down, Fran Petisca believes
nothing spells success quite like excess.
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Her closets, covering two entire floors, are crammed with
everything from lush furs and exquisite beaded dresses to
bellbottoms and fringed vests, from military uniforms to vintage
sportswear.
And the shoes!
"That whole rack there is
all nun’s shoes," she says.
Huh? A entire rack of sensible
laceups? Enough to outfit an entire road company of "Sister Mary
Ignatius Explains It All to You"?
There’d better be! Petisca
is costume supervisor for the Little Theatre of Fall River and when
a director selects a play, she’s got to be ready with costumes and
accessories in sizes galore.
This is all a cake walk for the
exuberant 74-year-old, an admitted clothes horse who never met a
velvet cloak or a smoking jacket that she didn’t absolutely adore.
"When I started here, we had one smoking jacket, now we’ve
got seven," she chortles. "When they’re on the cheap, I buy a
lot."
Oh OK, there have been one or two items rejected during
her 10 years on the job. Still, she’s increased the troupe’s
wardrobe about 80 percent, by screening donations, shopping the
thrift outlets and sewing up a storm.
"Three thousand
costumes and that’s conservative," she sighs, gesturing toward the
top two levels of the company’s Firebarn home, where everything is
stored. And never mind that every single item is in immaculate
condition, free of tears, stains and wrinkles.
So, yes,
Petisca thinks of the clothing as hers and treats it accordingly,
spending 10 to 12 hours a week fussing among the silks and satins,
the nylons and the polyesters.
She has her own laundry room
and steamer and says, "They’ve been good to me, they saw how much I
was doing and wanted to make it as easy as possible."
Petisca also makes it as easy as possible for others, like
Janice MacDonald, a veteran choreographer and director. She does
work for the Little Theatre as well as the University of
Massachusetts Dartmouth and Somerset High School troupes.
"I
can’t say enough about her. Whatever the show, whatever the script,
she has a knack for finding the very thing you need," says
MacDonald. "I call her the Edith Head of our little community."
While Petisca says this all began in 1993 when then-costume
supervisor Barbara Gerraughty asked her to take over for a bit, it
actually began when she was 8. Each night she’d lay her clothes out
for school the next day.
"I started sewing at 12, with a
vengeance at 19," she observes. "There was no money and I wanted to
look good."
She spent 35 years working in sewing shops,
mostly in a supervisory capacity, prior to retiring from Merit
Manufacturing. Then she worked privately as a seamstress.
But
it wasn’t her way with needle and thread that got her involved with
Little Theatre. It was her was her way with song and dance.
Petisca, a tap dancer in childhood, decided to brush up on
her skills at age 55 at a Swansea dance studio. And later, when
Little Theatre held tryouts for "42nd Street," she showed up to
audition.
"I was a hoofer in ‘42nd Street’ at 62," she says,
a measure of satisfaction creeping into her voice. "I was basically
a singer and dancer, not an actor, but I wanted to do one straight
play before I died."
She got that chance two years ago in
"The Crucible," and it signaled the end of her dramatic career. "It
was tough," she quips. "I knew my lines until I got on stage."
The backstage work suits her just fine, because in the end
it is on-stage work, because her carefully chosen rhinestones and
bowling bags, wigs and pith helmets inevitably make it into the
footlights.
Or, as Petisca says, "Everyone on stage is a
star, their family comes to see them, so the most fun is putting the
clothes on people making them look and feel great."
And if
someone isn’t comfy in the assigned outfit, Petisca will either find
something at Savers, her favorite place for inexpensive outfits, or
make something.
"If it’s not the perfect hat, I’ll make it
the perfect hat," she says. "With jewels, ribbons, feathers, flowers
and a glue gun -- the best invention, it saves me a lot of man
hours."
The actual decision on what cast members wear is the
director’s, not Petisca’s. "There’s been only one director who told
me to go ahead," she says. "I outfitted everyone and had a ball,
didn’t have to get anyone’s ‘yes’ or ‘no.’"
Still she has to
know her stuff in order to round up appropriate clothing and
accessories, otherwise the audience will be disappointed. "You can
use creative license, but you’ve got to be in the same ballpark,"
she exclaims.
That led her to muse, "We could do ‘Camelot’
and ‘Man of La Mancha,’ but Shakespeare we’d have to rent, because
you can’t Mickey Mouse Shakespeare."
Petisca also doesn’t
like to rely on costumes that are clichés and notes that in
productions like "Guys & Dolls" many costumers go overboard on
double-breasted suits and dark shirts for the shysters. "Look at the
newsreels," she says. "Some guys back then wore three-button suits.
I like costumes that truly reflect the period."
This all
invariably leads to requests -- from high school and college
companies -- to borrow from Little Theatre’s extensive cache. "I
think it’s such a waste to have this treasure trove and not have it
on some stage, somewhere," says Petisca.
Another reason
requests flood in is that costuming a show with rentals can be
costly. "Minimum $5,000, easy, and that’s bottom line," says
MacDonald, who is using Little Theatre costumes for her own Janalee
production of "The Wiz," Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 at Bristol Community
College.
But Petisca doesn’t honor those requests without a
signed document and a refundable security deposit. The way she tells
it, young actors often become attached to what they wear in shows
and want a souvenir.
However she knows what goes out and if
it doesn’t come back, she’s not opposed to a bit of persuasion.
"It’s my job, I take it personally," she says. "I scream at them,
tell them to look for it, because it’s something I don’t want to
replace. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t."
Petisca
says this like she does everything else: with a mischievous smile.
And as she passes a shelf of hats -- at least one of which is worthy
of the Ascot scene from "My Fair Lady" -- she can’t resist plopping
it on her head and mugging.
"I absolutely love what I’m
doing," she says. "The clothing, the tradition, the creativity ...
and when I’ve done a show and see everyone on-stage, I’m happy when
I think I’ve done the job right."
Paula Kerr may be reached
at pkerr@heraldnews.com.
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| ©The
Herald News 2003 |
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