BWW Blog: Christopher Vo of ON THE TOWN - Live Theatre

One of the wonderful things about live theater is that each audience member's experience is different. For me, a favorite aspect of live theater is its ability to suspend disbelief and to transport the audience to the world being presented onstage. When it's done well, immersion into the story-telling and production can make the audience forget, at least for a moment, that they are watching a bunch of actors in a play. The experience envelopes them, and before long the audience is crying and laughing along with the characters on the stage.

There are many unsung heroes that help breathe life into your theater experience -- members of the orchestra; the lighting, sound, and costume designers; crew members that work tirelessly to keep us all safe while executing elaborate set changes and lighting effects; dressers; and our amazing team of stage managers.

Costumes, of course, are one of the major components of a Broadway show. Our costume department deserves a HUGE round of applause. Our Tony Award-winning costume designer, Jess Goldstein, and the assistant costume designer/production wardrobe supervisor, Rory Powers, are a duo to be reckoned with. When you come to On The Town, you'll see why it's easy for us to claim that we have the best dressed cast on Broadway!

When asked about creating the costumes, Jess said: "ON THE TOWN is my dream project, especially designing it for John Rando, Josh Bergasse, and this beautiful cast. Though it takes place in only one day in 1944, there are so many incredible characters the three sailors encounter. These characters include working-class Manhattanites, jitterbuggers, befeathered showgirls, a side show in Coney Island, a diorama of cavemen and their girlfriends, among others. The show also includes four major ballets, each with their own MGM technicolor look."

During the show, I personally sport six different looks. At an average of at least five different looks per ensemble member, that adds up to more than one hundred costumes!!! Jess has done a magnificent job designing the show. Come and see for yourselves just how spectacular these costumes are.

The show requires a tremendous number of quick costume changes. Aside from the top-notch choreography seen onstage, there is a separate ballet that goes on behind the scenes. It's a seemingly chaotic but well organized dance complete with 11 wardrobe crew members, costume racks, baskets for already worn (and most likely sweaty) clothing, wigs, shoes, hats, etc., all flying around backstage. We have multiple different changing locations, some in the wings and some in the dressing rooms, which are one floor down from the stage. Each wardrobe piece is labeled with the corresponding actor's name, minimizing the chance that someone grabs the wrong sailor suit! We are so lucky to have such a great team of dressers who maintain and keep track of all the costumes and flawlessly execute the show's many quick changes (while steering clear of large set pieces and all sorts of traffic). I speak for the entire cast and creative team when I say that we are extremely grateful for our fantastic costume department. The work they do on a daily basis approaches the miraculous.

Preview performances are beginning and I'm still getting through some of the quick costume changes just by the skin of my teeth. But, with each rehearsal, my dressers and I are becoming a fraction of a second more efficient. I am sure that you would find some of the backstage madness hilarious -- our stage managers seem to get a kick out of it.