BELLOW FALLS, Vt. (AP) - Main Street Arts added another Main Street to its repertoire this fall, when it opened its costume shop for “The Secret Garden” on what is Main Street in Bellows Falls in everything but name.
Based on the classic 1911 children’s book, “The Secret Garden,” Main Street Arts’ upcoming theatrical production is all about finding renewal and solace in the natural world, and children helping themselves and each other.
The costume shop opened on The Square in downtown Bellows Falls last month, generating curiosity and community involvement. It’s only one door away from the Bellows Falls Opera House, where “The Secret Garden” will open Friday.
Main Street Arts artistic director David Stern and others had been looking for additional space close to the opera house and the northern storefront in the Rockingham Town Hall, which most recently housed Cafe 7, was still vacant.
“It’s been awesome. It’s been a giant marketing coup,” said Stern of the storefront workshop during a recent hectic afternoon. Work on the costumes was being wrapped up, with details being completed: buttons or large snaps sewn on, ribbon garlands being created, while next door, Stern and others worked on the set. “Plus it was really convenient,” he added.
It generated interest not just in the production but the small arts organization, which is based in the village of Saxtons River. And it also generated volunteers to help with the costumes and set dressing. “It was a really great piece of community awareness,” Liz Guzynski, the production’s costume designer, said.
“I do think it’s been a huge boon,” said Stern.
“We were really short of space,” said Guzynski, a visual artist and resident of Bellows Falls, who has been involved with Main Street Arts for the past couple of productions, which included “Jesus Christ Superstar,” ’’Sweeney Todd” and “Chicago.”
“This was very generous of the town and allowed us free rein to be creative,” Guzynski said.
And creative is an understatement.
“It’s very lush and romantic,” Stern said. “It’s like Rachmaninoff.”
The handcrafted and unique costumes are charming and whimsical. For the character of Dickon, the earthly boy who helps and guides Mary Lennox and her sickly cousin Colin Craven back to physical and spiritual health, Guzynski created green wool moss, which decorates his shirt.
Guzynski, a visual artist, said for the group of ghosts - the dead who spiritually haunt Mary and Colin - white costumes were made with antique lace — even doilies — that people from the village of Bellows Falls brought in and donated, intrigued by the theater production.
One of the white costumes is decorated with delicate white wool natural lace, made from the fleece of Lorna McMaster’s sheep.
Guzynski and McMaster set up the costume shop about six weeks ago, and held many felting workshops, teaching people who literally walked in the door of the storefront and asked what was going on. The space allowed them to have 20 people at a time learning how to felt and make flowers. “We ended up teaching over 50 people to felt,” McMaster said.
McMaster, who splits her time between Gilsum, N.H., and Prince Edward Island, Canada, raises a unique breed of sheep she has developed. Their fleece was perfect for felting and decorating costumes.
McMaster said they taught about 50 people how to needle felt wool, with wool from Harrisville Designs into flowers for “The Secret Garden.”
Not just flowers, but moss and mushrooms and all sorts of nature’s things.
People were intrigued but sometimes perplexed by the costume shop’s appearance in The Square, the two women said.
“People would come in and ask what Halloween costumes we had, or ask if we could fix their jeans,” said Guzynski.
“People stop and stare,” she said.
The costume shop has several large tables pushed together in to a U, and three sewing machines are set up and ready. Racks of costumes line the wall. Bags of brightly colored wool are close to the giant storefront windows.
Stern said if the town had a hard time finding a long-term tenant for the space (a Christmas shop is slated to go in for the holiday season as soon as The Secret Garden closes). But he said the generous deal from the town of Rockingham (free, with Main Street Arts paying electricity) likely couldn’t be repeated. The agreement was if the town found a permanent tenant, Main Street Arts would “move out on a dime,” Stern said.
During a recent afternoon, Guzynski was busy attaching felted shelf mushrooms for epaulets onto a costume for one of the ghost Victorian soldiers. The soldiers, who had died in the cholera epidemic that claimed Mary’s family, also will wear pith helmets, and Guzynski and McMaster had mushrooms growing out of them. Their military uniforms had floating, ghostly, chiffon capes.
There’s felted wool moss, instead of military ribbons.
There are 16 women and five men in the ghost sequences, and each has a different, original, white costume. There are a total of 32 actors in the show, although Guzynski said some took multiple parts, creating the need for more costumes.
McMaster created a garland of flowers and vines to decorate the orchestra pit’s curtains. And the two women were discussing whether they had enough time to do some extra felting for some special flower-decorated sashes for later in the play.
“We are working with the director to meet the vision for the play,” said Guzynski.”It helps the actors tell the story.”
Guzynski, McMaster and other volunteers made all but a handful of the costumes, although they got some clothing from Neen’s Costume Emporium in Keene, N.H. And they borrowed some items from the drama department at The Putney School.
“I started by reading the book and the play,” Guzynski said, and watching different theatrical productions on YouTube. Guzynski, who has a doctorate in 19th century Victorian literature, said the play is set in 1906, although key events happened 10 years earlier. “And the fashions in India would have lagged behind,” she said, adding some complications.
Stern, who has been artistic director at MSA for the past four years, said he chose “The Secret Garden” because he wanted to do a show with kids.
“Eight out of the 35 actors are kids, and two leads are children,” said Stern. The leads are played by 12-year-old Teya Bryan of Acworth, N.H., and 14-year-old Eben Wagner of Brattleboro.
“If you don’t cry at the end, I’ve failed,” said Stern. “I’ve cried.”
Online: https://bit.ly/368rFGd
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Information from: Brattleboro Reformer, http://www.reformer.com/
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