From LED screens to water mechanisms, the challenge of bringing vibrant creative visions to full display has been placed on the shoulders of many stage and props designers. But this has been carried by costume designers as well. We look back at the most dazzling costume changes from our list of theater favorites.

Phantom of the Opera

We start with one of the most memorable and magnificent stage performances of all time—The Phantom of the Opera. Carlotta’s refusal to perform allows ballet dancer Christine to audition with the musical’s famous aria, Think of Me. Audiences are then wowed with how rehearsal turns to actual performance thanks to a choreographed costume change, aided by her fellow ballet dancers. Maria Björnson’s engineered design was honored with a Tony. This noteworthy cooperation of stage choreography, modulated music, and brilliant design continues to be viewed to this day.

Wicked

Among many fast costume changes in Wicked, one of the most memorable is the short time it takes for Elphaba and Glinda to dress up backstage and return to the stage center. In One Short Day, the leads arrive in Emerald City. And in a span of fewer than 15 seconds, they exit, change costumes, and return to sing. The elaborate costumes designed are heavy, and as such, the production employs dressers to help the performers change quickly. Technical dress rehearsals require speedy hands that work like clockwork, wasting no time to move from one scene to the next.

Dreamgirls

Theoni V. Aldredge’s Tony-award-winning work not only impresses us for her brilliant and colorful executions of the Motown-inspired musical. The Greek-American stage designer was among the stage’s pioneers in employing reversible draped costumes and magnets. In Heavy, Heavy viewers are transported by the song, one step at a time, to each step of the girls’ inevitable rise to fame. Aldredge provides a pivotal costume change. In I Am Changing, Effie’s showstopping performance sees her from auditioning to bagging her coveted prize. And the delineation is further enhanced thanks to the costumes as well. 

Cinderella

This needs no further introduction. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical adaptation of this fairy tale classic was initially set for television. And understandably so, it would take a lot of visual effects to execute Cinderella and her homemade entourage’s iconic transformations. But William Ivey Long, whose genius has earned him his sixth Tony statuette for this production, was up to the task and did so excellently. Reversible drapery (like in Dreamgirls), as wells as pull strings and some stage ambient effects, helped bring the belle of the night to her ball and an eventual happy ending. 

Frozen

Frozen, a blockbuster hit animated film, was one of 2013’s highest-grossing films. And so it surprised no one when it made its giant leap from reel to real. The stage adaptation proved to be an enormous undertaking. Among its challenges being the vocal demands of Elsa’s Let It Go and the simultaneous transformation this requires to shift the character from damsel in icy distress to elegant snow queen. Costume designer Christopher Oram was the key to the puzzle, with a tear-away costume that adds dramatic flair to the symbolic change.

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Costumes not only provide a visual helping of nuance and context as far as stories are concerned. Stage fashion also enhances the aesthetics of audience perspective’s optics: from the performers’ movements to the general mood and ambiance of their vision from their own seats. And when the scene begs a quick transition from one look to the next, costume designers rise to the occasion. They find ways to execute the necessary changes seamlessly (for the audience) and comfortably (for those wearing it). And through skill and expertise, fashionably cement great scenes and memories inside our theater-loving minds and into theater’s long-running history.

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