Each holiday season, Rhode Islanders head to Trinity Repertory Company for their annual rendition of “A Christmas Carol.” For the theatre, it’s the biggest performance of the year, and for theatre-goers, it’s often a family tradition.
Over the years, the company has been known to put a twist on the Charles Dickens classic, and this season is no exception. We sat down with Amanda Downing Carney, director of the theatre’s costume shop and designer of this year’s costumes, to learn more about her unique take on Ebenezer Scrooge and how she is bringing this story to life.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Isabella Jibilian:
In the lead-up to the production, what have your days looked like?
Amanda Downing Carney:
My days have looked like madness. I am a mom, so on weekdays, I’m up by 5:30 a.m. or 6:00 a.m. to make sure my kids are up and lunches are made and they’re dropped out of school. And I get to the theater between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. to start my day. But during this process, sometimes I’m up even earlier with insomnia. So I’ll get up at 3:30 a.m. or 4:30 a.m. and start making a dressing list or ordering some shoes that I didn’t get a chance to the night before.
IJ:
When you are planning the costumes for a production, what are some of the things that you have to consider?
ADC:
It often starts with reading the script. When I read a script, I see it like a movie or a stage production already, and I start visualizing what that looks like. But, I can’t get too far in my head about it because then I’ll meet with the director and the director may have their own really specific ideas.
Then I have to sort of meld what my first ideas were with their new ideas.
Then I do all this research to figure out, well, what is the silhouette of that time period? Or what is the silhouette right before that time? Sometimes if it’s an older character, maybe they’re a little stuck in their past. Every choice that I make needs to be in service of the story that we’re trying to tell.
IJ:
How is this Christmas Carol a bit different from others that people might have seen?
ADC:
The biggest difference is that our Ebenezer Scrooge is a woman. And that changes the story in some ways because that actor is bringing in different ideas of why Scrooge is the way she is, based on maybe how society has treated her, especially if she’s a woman that is successful in her business at that time period.
IJ:
There are costumes we associate with Scrooge over the years: Scrooge in a suit, Scrooge in a nightgown. How have you translated that this time around for a female actor?
ADC:
There are definitely traditional silhouettes we think of when we think of Scrooge. And I’ve tried to keep some of those. And I did some research at the time period. I wanted to make sure that what I wanted to design was actually something that could be worn at that time.
So we gave her pants, but we also gave her sort of a split front dress, which was important to walk the line of masculine and feminine. And then she also has a top hat. I love a lady in a top hat.
IJ:
What were some of the historic designs you drew from as inspiration for this costume?
ADC:
I found some images of some women equestrians and they had top hats and they also would bustle their dress up and wear some sort of legwear. At this time, people started riding bicycles too. And so dresses were hard to wear riding a bicycle. And also there were bloomers, long bloomers, and then the dresses got short, but it was kind of like at knee level.
IJ:
To you, what is the power of a costume?
ADC:
A costume and clothing have power always, or there wouldn’t be dress codes or rules. And so clothing and costumes have, I think, great power. It’s expression of the character, but it’s expression of self. It is nonverbal communication. It’s telling the world who you are or what you want the world to know about you without saying a word. And that’s really, I think that is powerful.
For more behind the scenes at the Trinity Repertory Company’s costume shop, watch our story on Rhode Island PBS Weekly:
A Christmas Carol will be playing at Providence Performing Art Center from December 26 through December 29.
