Mission Statement (the goals and responsibilities of this crew):

The main purpose of the Costume Crew is to provide costumes and accessories for the actors participating in all mainstage productions and, upon request, studio productions. When the Costume Crew cannot provide for all costumes they arrange to rent costumes or organize for the actors to find their own, far in advance of Hell Week.

Our main goal is to provide colorful, interesting, period consistent, and fun to look at costumes to add a new dimension to the theater presentation. The Costume Crew would also like to be able to not only find and organize costumes, but to be able to create their own design scheme for the Staples Players shows, allowing their creative skills to manifest physically. More detailed responsibilities of the Costume Crew is as follows:

Main Responsibilities and Rules of Costume Crew:

1. All decisions in terms of costumes must be approved by one of the Costume Crew Senior Managers or if approval by Senior Managers is not possible, at very least, a costume must have the Crew Head’s approval.
   
2. All members of the Costume Crew must participate in at least 15 hours of Costume Crew related tech work per semester. This can be by actually sewing costumes, finding costumes in the Costume Shop, organizing the Costume Shop, modifying costumes, or keeping costumes in order during rehearsals and performances.
   
3. All work done in the Costume Shop MUST be cleaned up afterwards, leaving the Costume Shop in the exact same condition as it was found, if not cleaner.
   
4. Those Costume Crew members not actively participating onstage or backstage during a performance will be asked to act as dressers for actors with quick changes. Hours as a dresser will count as tech hours.
   
5. The Costume Crew must provide the actors with all costumes that would otherwise require actors to go to great difficulty financially or otherwise to obtain. However, it is not out of line for the Costume Crew to ask actors to provide commonplace items in wardrobe (ex. Socks, plain t-shirts, and other simple clothing). Unless specified by Costume Crew, actors will always provide their own footwear.
   
6. If a studio director wishes the Costume Crew to provide costumes for his/her production they must obtain the approval of the Costume Crew Senior Managers before submitting the studio application. Failure to do so will result in justified refusal of Costume Crew to costume the studio, and will only costume the production if the crew has spare time to sacrifice.
   
7. All sewing machines and materials in the Costume Shop are property of Staples Players. Any tampering, destruction, or theft of any of Staples Players property will be dealt with harshly. Punishment will decided upon by all senior managers in conjunction with Staples Players officers and Staples Players Director, David Roth.
   
8. Any behavior deemed unruly or unacceptable by either Senior Manager will result in the expulsion of the unruly crew member and possible further penalties by the Staples Players Director.
   
9. Parents will not be allowed to make costuming decisions for their children. And costumes are not to be disputed by actors. The only intervention that will be allowed by parent or student is if the parent or student feels that the costume is inappropriate (ex. too sexual, too scanty, etc. ) but not because they feel the costume is unattractive or unflattering.
   
10. All costumes required by actors to obtain must be approved by the Costume Senior Managers by the given deadline. If you have not told the Senior Managers by the given date that you cannot find a certain costume then you will not be given a costume for that particular scene and you will not participate in that scene on stage.
    
11. All members of the Costume Crew are allowed to input ideas as to costume design, however, all final decisions are made by Costume Crew Senior Managers.
    
12. There will be mandatory Costume Crew meetings at least once a month. More will be necessary the closer to production time. All meeting times will be posted at least 4 days in advance on the call board, and will be sent via e-mail to individual members.
    
13. Anyone not on the Costume Crew is allowed to help if permitted by the Costume Crew Senior managers, however, unauthorized entry into the Costume Shop is not permitted and the trespasser will be thrown out. No one may just come into the Costume Shop to "browse" unless allowed to by Senior Managers.
    
14. The Costume Crew Senior Managers will be advisors to the crew members. One of the first three meetings of the Costume Crew will be a Basic-Skill Session teaching simple sewing techniques that will be helpful to crew members. There will also be a parent or adult mentor/advisor. This person will serve as a teacher and helper. They will help teach skills and organize costumes and provide outside help. However, they will not be an authority on the costume scheme or design of productions, only an outside supervisor. They will act as another crew member.

Roles of Specific Costume Crew Members

Senior Manager

• To design and create the costume scheme for the mainstage production and requested studio productions, in correlation with the director’s ideas.
• To distribute costuming tasks evenly amongst the Costume Crew so as to lessen the burden of individual members
• To track Costume Crew members attendance and tech hours
• To advise and teach less skilled costumers
• To interpret script and ideas into clothing and accessories
• To work as a crew member
• To put the final costume run into place
• Must have sewing skills
• Vote on parent/adult advisor

Crew Head

• To act as Senior Manager in Senior Manager’s absence
• Acts as crew member
• May take some part in costuming design
• Must have basic sewing skills

Parent/Adult Advisor

• To teach new and important skills to Costume Crew members
• Help organize Costume efforts
• Donate ideas for costume design
• Acts as a crew member

Crew Member

• Sews costumes
• Hems and modifies costumes
• Helps make sure costumes are organized for rehearsals and performances
• Irons costumes
• Collects costumes at the end of shows
• Organizes the Costume Shop
• Finds costumes when not made
• Has fun

Basic- Skill Workshop

This workshop will take place some time in September and will teach the costume crew members who do not already know how, how to do helpful and easy sewing techniques. Some of the skills taught are the following:

• Hemming skirts, pants, dresses, sleeves
• Sewing on buttons
• Adjusting straps
• Sewing on zippers
• Undoing a stitch
• Basic Sewing machine use