Concho Shakespeare continues their work on “The Merchant of Venice” on a quiet Monday afternoon, while rain trickles down the back doors of the Black Box theatre.
The actors are in early rehearsals. Their lines echo into the back hallways, where Trina Medellin Delgado looks through racks of costumes and shirts, piles of hats and flourishes, searching for the just right look. She sorts through clothes while big dance hits play off her phone speaker.
“The kiss of death for a show is for your actor to be uncomfortable,” she explains “It happens all the time, and the actor is miserable. I believe in having a talk with the cast, asking ‘What do you think your character would wear?…and do you have it in black.’”
The theme will be simple: a black base layer with a few flashes of Shakespeare. She picks out plain black pants, shirts, capes, gowns, and vests.
“We always think about the 30-foot rule, everything looks good from 30 feet away.” She explains. “The only problem is that in this theatre we’re closer than 30 feet.”
Though some of the clothes will be modern, her approach is as traditional as it gets. During many original productions of these plays, the actors were dressed in common clothes, with only simple flourishes to make the character known.
This also made it easier for one actor to play multiple parts, which is planned for this production. In fact, one actress will be playing four different parts.
Trina is a big believer in color stories.
“I go into it thinking about the audience knowing nothing at all about the character,” she said.
Keep it simple: bad guys are in red, good guys in blue, rich people in gold, and so forth.
Considering how the character changes throughout the show is another consideration. The character might start out from a place of purity and simplicity shown by florals and flowing lines.
Evolving into a vengeful or evil performance brings the suggestion of heat and flames. She calls this character change “floral to flames.”
“I’m going to try and do this with Shakespeare,” she explains “but from what I understand, these characters are already so big, they don’t need a lot of razzle-dazzle. The story speaks for itself.”
Trina is a veteran of the esteemed Be Theatre troupe, where she acted and costumed for 9 years. The first play she outfitted was a production of “Five Course Love.” Since then, she’s costumed for countless others, while fronting a band, working as a stylist, and taking care of the kids.
She previously costumed for Concho Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
As she sifts through the piles of costumes, she finds a promising vein of black cloaks and shirts, and pulls one out, knowing which role it’s destined for.
“I’ll be honest, sometimes I get distracted and start playing dress up,” she admits, throwing the robe around her shoulders and flipping the hood up. “I like being evil,” she says smirking.
Trina has always been a fashionista, remembering her school days, where she envisioned an outfit and then made it happen. Different themes like retro rocker or 60s hippie.
She loves to do this work because not all costume departments consider that the actors should be comfortable, and therefore able to give their best performances.
“It’s hard to costume and be costumed as a plus-sized person, I honestly started getting into it because of that. Being costumed by someone who doesn’t really understand your body is always uncomfortable.”
Traditional Elizabethan garb involves tight layers of heavy cloth. Women traditionally wore corsets which constrict breathing and might even make someone faint standing underneath the stage lights. Trina makes sure everyone feels their part while in costume.
After everything is picked out, the company will do a “costume parade”, where everybody shows up and “walks”. From there, its onto the first dress rehearsal.
She pulls out a big brown cloak with a fur lining.
“I think this is going to be our Antonio…” she says wrapping it around, styling it.
“Actually, I don’t know how I feel about this cloak…it kind of looks like a squirrel — too much caveman.”
She tosses it and moves over to the next rack.
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