The One That Hasn’t Been Written Yet

by Jessie Wallace

I have long been a lover of new works, having worked with many friends who were wonderful composers or writers in college. That was my first foray into the world of what it takes to bring a new work from page to stage or brain to print. During my tenure with IMPRINT Theatreworks, I headed up the First Impressions Festival each spring that sought new plays (and a couple of musicals) by local DFW writers, in the 5 years we did this festival we were able to bring around 60 new works to the stage in a reading format. And in the last few years, I have loved working with Rebecca Lowrey, the CEO of MusicalWriters.com, on their Musical Writer’s Festival each summer and on various staged readings. I was also able to bring to life I’m Proud of You and Imposter! Hypocrite! Tartuffe at Circle Theatre in 2023 and 2024. Just this Fall, though, it has been my great honor to be on the design team for three New Works here in Dallas. First was cleaVage at Lakeside Community Theatre presented by MusicalWriters.com, followed by The Trade: a Tragedy in Four Quarters at Theatre Three, and then closing out my month with Lend Me Chainsaw once again with MusicalWriters.com presented at Rosewood Center for the Arts, all in one month. Since 2018, my life has been filled with new works in many forms and I am so thankful for each of them. 

Whenever I bring up to friends that I’m working on a world premier, I get 2 replies almost every time. “Oh how fun!” and/or “I can’t imagine doing that.” Both are equally honest and make me laugh. As a costume designer, I often find my google search history filled with random things and never has it been more absolutely odd than this fall. The nice thing about the standard theatre fare is that we can reference past productions, whether we want to take inspiration from that or go the complete opposite direction. We have no such provenance for new works and while that can be daunting, I find it thrilling. So let’s discuss.

Where do you start? Unlike designing the set, I get to start with the characters. I’m lucky with shows like Lend Me a Chainsaw and cleaVage where these characters are so well written I can picture them in my mind before I even know who is cast. Whether it is the breast cancer survivor (cleaVage), Glenda, or the overworked and underappreciated hotel clerk (Chainsaw), Jo, the descriptions and script give a very clear image of who this person is. Not necessarily in how they look, but how they approach the world. Glenda is terrified when we first see her, she’s visiting a plastic surgeon to see about getting an implant to replace the breast she had to part with during her first cancer fight, so I put her in light colors, a long dress, and a big cardigan. This then lends itself to see her grow and change as she falls in love, starts a family, battles cancer and the FDA, and eventually finds her peace, allowing for brighter colors, flashier clothes, and more attention grabbing styles. No matter what show it is, I always look at the journey a character takes and how to show that (without hitting the audience over the head with it) through their clothing. Whether someone becomes less buttoned up or more colorful, there are subtle ways to bring the audience with you on the journey. I have found that these new characters, who have mostly lived in the writer’s heads and not been able to step off the page yet, allow for a lot of freedom and fun when it comes to design. You’re not tied to the white dress with the red ribbon for the gym scene (West Side Story), but you can create a whole new world for these characters to play in. 

How do you not become crippled with choice paralysis when you have no parameters to start with? Let me be clear, the first part of the design process for me is always choice paralysis. Following those moments of panic, I start with one character and build out from there. Whether it is because I relate to that character or I have the clearest image of them or because they are given more description in the script, it doesn’t matter. Once I nail down one character, I move to the one they interact with or have the most relationship with in the script, then build on from there. This was an adventure when it came to The Trade by Matt Lyle and Matt Coleman. The central character is Nico Harrison, embodied perfectly by Quintin Jones Jr. Nico is a real person and the only character not playing multiple roles, which gave me a great place to start! Once I nailed down Nico’s looks for Act 1 and 2, I was able to look at the Chorus Leader. He is in charge of our Greek Chorus of characters and only plays 1 other character (another real person). Then I was able to build out the Chorus from there. Matt (writer and director) and I went back and forth on what these characters looked like. Did we want a true Greek chorus looks the whole time? Did we want to bring them into our time period? We eventually settled on a marriage of the two. Modern athleisure-wear with toga-like additions that bring out the Greek Style. This gave them all more ability to switch quickly between characters or literally step off one platform and become someone else through physicality alone. The chorus actors (Chad Cline, Jeff Swearingen, Davian Jackson, and Elizabeth Evans) are all masters of embodying characters without costume changes and that makes my job all the more fun. 

What happens if a writer/director/actor disagrees with your design ideas? You talk it out! Art is collaboration in its truest form. You have to trust every person in the room (on stage or off) and be able to work together for the best outcome of the show. This is true for new works and established productions. If you are lucky enough to have the writer involved, even on the outskirts of a production, they likely have a movie of the show that plays in their mind. That movie doesn’t always translate to the stage and both of you have to make adjustments. You can’t be so deeply rooted in a design that you can’t accommodate changes, nor should a writer be so dug in about how it looks in their mind to not be able to hear outside ideas. What seems to the designer as the ideal design doesn’t always work out, we have to adapt and move forward without letting it hurt our feelings or our creative soul. Things happen, actors change, the script gets edited, theatre is about making modifications, don’t be afraid to move with it. 

If you ask any actor what their dream show is, chances are they will say “The one that hasn’t been written yet.” No matter if you are on stage or off, the craving for new stories that haven’t been told yet is very real. As humans, we all seek new experiences and need creative endeavors or we find ourselves drifting. This is never truer than in the world of the Arts. Who doesn’t want to see the generation defining artist or meet the genre changing writer and have memories associated with greatness even a little? Unfortunately, finding that is hard and it takes time and patience. We also love routines and normalcy which causes the multiple productions of the same show year after year or even all in the same year. Like watching your comfort show or movie over makes you feel a sense of peace, knowing what is going to happen in a musical or play gives that same calm to our brains and hearts. But I know we are all tired of seeing Mamma Mia!, Music Man, CATS, Young Frankenstein, etc. over and over and over and over and over and over and… so why don’t we try something new? What are we so afraid of?