The Costume Supervisor’s Toolkit

CHAPTER 4 Setting up Your Team

As a costume supervisor, you are a manager of people and resources. Theatre is a completely collaborative artform, and as discussed in previous chapters, you cannot do your job properly if you do not reflect on this undeniable truth. You have to work with others to get the best possible outcome: this is part of the joy of theatre and costume, but it requires a high level of management skill. The job role is summarized below, and reads quite simply as a list; however, it is more easily written than enacted:

• collaborating (working with the designer, director, production manager, actors and costume shop);
• listening (to all of the above);
• preparing (for meetings with the director and design and for fittings);
• managing ...