Costume designers incorporate Victorian Era

MHCC’s lead costume designer Melissa Heller draws inspiration throughout the process of her work. “I’m inspired by the way fabric feels, and the way something sits on a body, so it just kind of develops, it evolves as we go along,” she said.

“I’m a moment-to-moment person. I do what I can just to get through, and I love doing it,” said Heller. “I’m a maker, first. I am more of an engineer than anything else, so I can design as much as I want at the very beginning of it, but things don’t often occur to me until I’m making it.”

Since September, Heller has worked with Karissa Gratreaks and her two daughters, Adriana and Minda, behind the scenes of “Alice in Wonderland,” designing costumes for the play. The Gratreakses are three theater students who are interested in costume design.

Designing with a team is a new experience for Heller. “I usually work alone, so, I had a hard time with this at first – articulate what was in my head and what I just kind of intrinsically know how to do,” she said.

Heller and MHCC’s artistic theatre director, Mace Archer, decided to stay true to the time period of “Alice in Wonderland,” so they dressed the characters in outfits from the Victorian era.

“Originally, it was going to have a lot of Asian influences, and a lot of fusion going on there. Eventually, we just kind of settled on something that is not very high styling,” said Heller.

“We went a little bit more on the Victorian side because that’s what every little kid wants to see. It’s comforting, something that you’d expect to see, something that you wanna see when you see an ‘Alice’ production,” she said.

In MHCC’s adaptation, there are different classes of character. “There’s the narrators, which are the techni-color ones, (and) the monochromatic ones – we have a green, blue, yellow, and red one,” said Heller.

“Then, we have what I’m calling ‘shadows.’ They’re like in-play stagehands, in all blacks,” she said. “They kind of have a Victorian silhouette and most of those are also the puppeteers.”

The stagehands wear costumes that mimic the parts they play. “We try to incorporate real life elements of what their puppet doppelganger was,” Heller said. “The Cat has fur elements; the Pigeon has feather elements.”

Adriana Gratreaks was fired up to see the play’s first real performance hit its mark.

“I loved seeing it come to life with all the kids,” said Adriana. “They were right in the middle of it, the actors all ran through the aisles, and all the kids didn’t expect it, so they were screaming, and they were laughing.

“There were so many things to learn from watching it on stage,” she said about the design work. “You see how it fits on actors versus how you first thought it would look, even the personality of the actor changes what the costume looks like.”

Costumes truly transform the actors into their characters, Karissa Gratreaks said. “The difference I see with that is watching them rehearse in their own clothes, they’re an actor playing this part. And when they get into costume, they are this part, and it’s really incredible.”

The veteran Heller has noticed the same. “It’s incredible to me, almost without fail, how a costume changes an actor, and in a perfect world, it shouldn’t,” she said. “They should have their characters set, and they should know their character from the rehearsal process. It’s there, something magical about being someone else.”

The costume designers set big expectations for themselves.

“One saying we have all over the shop in here is ‘Go big, or go home,’” Karissa said. “Either do it or get out of the way, (and) somebody else will” get the job done, she said.

Karissa’s ambition is to design costumes for Cirque du Soleil, a Canada-based entertainment company. “That’s down the road, but I’m definitely working towards it,” she said. A master’s degree in design would be required, she said.

Her daughters, Adriana and Minda, are weighing their options. “We’re still figuring where our dreams will take us, but definitely always (as) a team,” said Adriana.

The Gratreakses plan to take a costume design class at Mt. Hood in the spring. “They only do that once every two years, so we’re looking forward to that,” Adriana said.

Karissa, Adriana, and Minda are grateful for Heller’s guidance, and look forward to having the youngest Gratreak, Joey, join them at MHCC.

“My children have always been my heroes,” Karissa said, “and we look forward to Joey joining us. They’re amazing kids and I feel so proud of them and so blessed to have them.”