Production Center Update: These Heroes Save Costumes

The first thing SCR Costume Shop Manager Amy Hutto thought when she heard about the Jan. 26 roof collapse at SCR’s Production Center was, “Thank God A Christmas Carol’s costumes and set pieces were still at the theatre.” Then, Hutto got philosophical.

“I came to work Monday morning and didn’t really know what had happened. I had no idea if the roof fell in on the costumes, on the props. … Then, I figured we’d deal with it however we have to deal with it,” she said. “It was the middle of the night, nobody was hurt and A Christmas Carol had survived.”

There were 200 pairs of shoes and some helmets that were ruined, due to sitting in cardboard boxes saturated by two inches of water. But aside from that, Hutto and her crew saved every costume item.

With her initial fears calmed, Hutto and a crew hired by Knight Restoration got busy performing a Herculean feat--packing up more than 100,000 hanging garments and untold numbers of shoes, scarves, hats and other haberdashery into hundreds of garment boxes and dozens of racks. It took Hutto and her four-to-seven person crew a week to pack everything up. The majority of the items were transported to a rented facility.

It took three truckloads to get everything out, and that’s not counting the garment racks that went into PODS-like containers on site holding items that will be needed for productions this spring, summer and possibly into the fall. 

These items include pieces that Lux Haac, the costume designer for SCR’s upcoming production of You Are Cordially Invited to the End of the World! by Keiko Green, eyed for use on that upcoming world premiere production. Hutto said other items may find their ways into upcoming Teen Players and Summer Players productions.

“It was amazing,” Hutto said about the process.

That process saved difficult-to-restore or re-create period pieces from the Elizabethan, Victorian and Edwardian eras and fantastical Theatre for Young Audiences and Families costumes.

Others, such as the body suit and padding used for SCR’s 2013 production of The Whale and some bustles and bumrolls (undergarments that support the skirts worn in Elizabethan and colonial times) went back to SCR’s theatre facility for a microbial solution spraying, washing and drying.

“It could have been much worse,” she said. “We have our warehouse costume storage in pretty good shape and we keep it organized pretty darn well. We have everything organized on shelves and in plastic bins, so much of it wasn’t damaged."

SCR’s off-site Production Center housed costumes, tens of thousands of props and served as the paint studio, where scenic artists painted the sets you see on stage. It also is the year-round home for the sets, costumes and props for the theatre’s annual production of A Christmas Carol.

While most of the 100,000 costumes were saved, plenty of work remains restoring the Production Center. SCR has identified a warehouse to rent in Orange for our scenic artists to paint our sets.