C “Whether they are on stage for 20 seconds or two hours, they must be wearing something!”
atherine Coursaget came to Groton in the fall of 1987 to join Michelene Myers teaching French in the Modern Language Department. Twentyone years and hundreds of French students and advisees later, Madame Coursaget has retired from her duties on the Circle and will return to Paris. As mentioned in another section of this issue, she will be missed by countless Grotonians and for countless reasons. Although those who encountered Madame Coursaget in and out of class know her to be fair, demanding, spirited and motherly, perhaps Madame Coursaget’s full talents were most colorfully realized in the hundreds of costumes she created supporting the Groton drama program over the years. Her career as a costumiere spans those of seven Groton theater directors with whom she collaborated, staging language plays in what was once the Pleasure Dome with Madame Myers, musicals and dramas in the Schoolhouse theater most extensively with Elson Harmon, and for the last three years supporting plays directed by former theater director, Sue Clark, and current director, Laurie Sales, in the Campbell Performing Arts Center. With the new state-of-the-art Campbell Center came more ambitious plays, the scale and scope of which had to be supported through Coursaget costuming. As Madame Coursaget says, “whether they are on stage for 20 seconds or two hours, they must be wearing something!” Over the years many assistants, faculty wives as well as students have also labored in Coursaget’s apartment or in the theater, assembling pieces that would carry the proper theme, time period, and color statement. In recent years, Jade Allamby ’02, Christine Kim ’99, H Y Kim ’05, Nu Assarat ’97, Andrew Fulham ’08, Bronwyn Carter ’11, Joelle Julian ’09, and zoe Silverman ’11 have helped in the costume production. Coursaget has made sure the costume collection has grown. In her back rooms behind the theater you will find everything from fake seaweed, to period costumes, to science fiction get-ups, wigs, hats and canes. Catherine asserts she is self-taught in her work, and she admits to having gotten better over the years, “more from daring than from knowledge.” We all wish Catherine the very best as she settles into her retirement in Paris! The theater program will certainly miss her verve and professionalism. Students, faculty and theater attendees will see some of Catherine’s creative brilliance as her costume collection continues to delight with each production. Bonne chance, Catherine. Quarterly Fall 2009
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