DESIGNING THE SNOW GOOSE
AN INTERVIEW WITH COSTUME DESIGNER
MALLORY KAY NELSON BY KATIE DESJARDINS | ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING Why did you decide to become a costume designer, and specifically, to design for disabled people? I fell in love with theatre at a very young age. I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in kindergarten, but it wasn’t until eighth grade that I discovered costume design. We watched a video about Queen Elizabeth I, and when I saw her wardrobe, I knew I had to make one of those gowns. I learned how to thread a sewing machine, made an Elizabethan gown, and I’ve been designing costumes ever since. Right out of high school, I had the opportunity to work with PHAMALY Theatre Company in Denver, Colorado. Soon after, I became their costume designer. The entire company was made up of disabled performers, and that became my standard. I’ve designed more costumes for disabled performers than abled performers. What’s interesting is that I came to PHAMALY as a disabled designer without realizing I would be designing for disabled performers. It wasn’t something I sought out. We just fit together. In a way, Disability theatre found me. What is your design philosophy? My design philosophy is rooted in Disability. I bring a Disability lens to every production because it is how I move through and understand the world. That perspective shapes the questions I ask about every character. What are their disabilities, what is their vocation, and how has that affected their clothing? Clothing holds the history of a person’s life, and I use those questions to uncover the story the costume needs to tell.
Frith
I draw from Disability culture, history, scholarship, and lived experience as sources of design knowledge. That perspective informs every aspect of my work, whether I’m designing disabled
characters or not. Disability is not simply part of my identity. It is the foundation of my artistic practice. Are there any special skills or considerations needed when designing for disabled people? I wouldn’t use the word "special" because, in the end, everybody has a body. Designing costumes always means thinking about how clothing moves, where it puts pressure on the body, how someone gets dressed, and what they need to do on stage. Those are considerations for every performer. With disabled performers, they simply become essential. As a visibly disabled designer, I also find that I enter the fitting room differently. Many disabled performers have spent their lives being stared at or asked intrusive questions about their bodies in public. There’s often an immediate understanding that allows us to have more open conversations about their bodies, their movement, and what they need from their costume. That trust becomes part of the design process. Designing for disabled performers is collaborative. Disabled people are experts in their own bodies, and the best designs come from listening, experimenting, and creating together. What excites you about designing The Snow Goose? The Snow Goose is a story about relationships, but it’s also a story about isolation, community, care, and love. What excites me most is the opportunity to imagine what Disability culture might have looked like in this world. I’m interested in what happens when Disability culture becomes part of the design process from the very beginning. Theatre has largely taught audiences what disability is through stories created by abled people. Disability is often constructed to elicit emotion rather than being rooted in the history, culture, and lived experience of disabled people.
The other thing that excites me about working on a new musical is that no one knows exactly how it will end. A new piece is always evolving, and it has the potential to surprise everyone involved, including the designers. Tell us about your designs for The Snow Goose. What was your inspiration? What research goes into creating costumes for the specific time and place of this show? My research started with the world of the play. Rural fishing villages in Essex in the 1930s looked very different from the fashionable image many people associate with that decade. There is a quiet, utilitarian quality to the clothing. Garments were made to work, to last, to be repaired, and often to be handed down. That history naturally led me to knitwear. Knitting has long been part of fishing communities. In some places, villages developed their own distinctive sweater patterns that identified where someone came from. I loved the idea that knitwear could become another way of telling the story of this community, and it grew into a design element that runs throughout the production. There are almost no photographs of a disabled fisherman living in the Essex marshes in the 1930s. Disabled people were there, but they were rarely the ones preserving or telling their own stories. Designing Philip meant imagining a visual history that was never recorded. Philip looks wild to the eye, but he’s actually quite ordered. As an artist, he takes discarded objects and transforms them into sculptures, finding beauty where others might not think to look. I wanted his clothing to reflect that same way of seeing the world. Somewhere during the design process, his sweater became a Crip artifact. It carries Philip’s history and offers another way of understanding who he is. The knitwear also gave me the opportunity to bring Disability culture into the making of the production itself. Frith’s hat and scarf were created by Annie Jose, a disabled fiber artist. I love finding opportunities to include disabled artists in the creative process. It allows Disability culture to exist not only in the story being told, but in the way the story is made. Although the research grounded the designs, the color palette came from somewhere more personal. When I first read the script, I kept
picturing the sunset over the marsh. The palette grew from those luminous evening skies: warm golds, amber, apricot, peach, coral, rose, lavender, and deep violet. Those colors became the emotional landscape of the production. My hope is that they not only capture the beauty of the marsh, but gently pull the audience’s eye into the story and invite them to experience the world through that landscape.
Philip R hayader
Harper
Anything else you'd like to share? I’d like to thank Goodspeed Musicals, Donna Lynn Hilton, Michael Fling, and Marshall Pailet for this opportunity. This production marks an important milestone in my career because opportunities like this have rarely existed for disabled costume designers. Disability has only recently begun to be recognized on stage through disabled performers. We have hardly begun to think about disability behind the scenes, let alone imagine disabled people as costume designers, directors, or other members of the creative team.
Wilf
Part of my work has been documenting these experiences. To my knowledge, I’m the only person writing in English from the perspective of a disabled costume designer. If we don’t record our history, our ideas, and our practice, they’ll continue to be absent from the profession.
Clara
The d Bar