Theater at Brown and design at RISD?

yers2
Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:17:33 +0000

I apologize in advance for the long post.
I’ve also looked at Brown for costume design, even though I’m not sure what I want to do. I would recommend Brown for an aspiring costume designer who wants a liberal arts education, or for one who is not entirely sure he/she wants to be a costume designer.

Brown offers maybe five or so classes in costume design, I think, covering all the bases (history, design, construction) but I’m not sure how often they are offered. Five is better than most schools, but if you know you want to be a costume designer, there are stronger schools (Indiana U, U-Alaska @ Fairbanks) but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to Brown for costuming.

At Brown, probably the majority of what you will learn in costuming will be from doing shows, and there are many opportunities to do shows. There are six or so shows that are faculty-directed and faculty-designed (if I remember correctly) and many more shows you can do through companies like Brownbrokers, Shakespeare on the Green, and more. You might also try costuming for some dance performances or something and find that you enjoy that.

Check out the website for the dep’t of theatre, speech and dance for costume pictures and more info on the many many theater groups at Brown. If you decide to apply, I think you should assemble a portfolio (if you don’t already have one) for admissions to send to Phillip Contic or someone, to evaluate.

I don’t know much about taking design classes at RISD but I know they have an amazing collection of costumes and textiles in their museum. Studying design of different kinds (esp. at RISD) certainly helps w/ costuming, but if you take classes there, you should focus on design over say, drawing IMO, because you just need to know how to convey the idea for a costume, and not necessarily in a drawing. (Some costumers decide they’d rather write about the design and do swatches, for instance.)
But anyway…
Here’s what I recommend: apply to Brown, hopefully you’ll get in, take a few costuming classes, a few design courses at RISD, work on a whole bunch of shows with a few different organizations at Brown, get an internship somewhere…then get a job on Broadway and then maybe go into fashion (a la Jane Suttell… look her up and check out her resume).

Good luck!