Costumers at Work: The Collaborative Creativity, Emotional Labour, and Technical Skill of Costume Creation (Studies in Costume as Scenographic Practice and Technical Craft)

Costumers at Work: The Collaborative Creativity, Emotional Labour, and Technical Skill of Costume Creation explores the various forms of work carried out in the costume workshop by the myriads of skilled professionals who transform ideas and sketches into the wearable costumes seen on stage. Costume work, as collective, collaborative, and material labour produced by a predominantly female workforce, has been long overlooked by the performance industry and those who study it.This book exposes the inherent tensions between theatre’s strict hierarchies and collaborative ideology and how these inform the structures negotiated day to day by costumers as they carry out their work.Through close attention to their work, the book establishes costumers’ work as collaborative and complex, a creative and emotional labour that contributes to enhanced storytelling, actor performance, and audience experience.Using extensive ethnographic observation conducted over 14 months at three professional theat