WINSTON-SALEM – They’ve been dreaming of this for a long time.  

After decades of working in cramped, leaking, stuffy, makeshift spaces (one was originally used as a gym shower room), the costume and wig & makeup programs of the School of Design and Production at the North Carolina School of the Arts have moved into 21^st century digs. 

 A new Costume, Wig and Makeup Building opened for classes just a couple weeks ago. The structure, located near the Ehle Drive entrance off of Waughtown Street, is a state-of-the-art facility, custom-designed for the needs of the programs. Part of the building houses the costume program; the other part, the wig and makeup program. 

Designed by architectural firm Calloway Johnson Moore & West of Winston-Salem and built by John M. Campbell Company of Monroe, the 15,500-square-foot facility cost $1.7 million – part of the $42.5 million in higher education bonds approved for NCSA by North Carolina voters in 2000. 

To outfit the facility, the School of the Arts raised another $304,000 in private funds, stemming from a $100,000 challenge grant from Malcolm M. and Patty Brown of Winston-Salem. Major donors to the project (contributing $10,000 or more) include: Nancy and Preston Athey, Bill and Solange Brown, Nancy and Paul Gwyn, Eldridge Hanes, Mrs. Gordon Hanes, R. Philip Hanes Jr., Hanes Dye and Finishing, the Wachovia Foundation (Wachovia Wealth Management), and Calder Womble. Donors also included faculty and alumni of the School of Design and Production.  

Visitors enter the new facility through an entrance plaza and lobby. A main hallway extends the length of the building; the costume program is on the right, while the wig and makeup program is on the left.  

The finest training center at a university level in the country, the new wig and makeup area includes a large makeup application room; a wig construction and styling room; and a small makeup studio for lengthy character makeup application.  

In addition, the area features a prosthetics lab (with oven), equipped to handle urethanes, latices and silicones; an industrial-sized spray booth; and two faculty offices.  

The new costume shop features two large costume studios, or ateliers, equipped with homosote-covered tables (for cutting patterns and fabric), sewing machines (16 home machines, six industrial machines and four industrial overlocks), industrial irons, and a six-thread computerized embroidery machine. The studios have a sprung wood floor – critical to costumers who stand most of the day.  

In addition, there are two large fitting rooms; a crafts studio for making, repairing and preparing costume accessories, such as millinery (hats), armor, and footwear; a dye studio with two industrial dye vats, for dyeing costume fabrics; a drying deck for air-drying of fabrics; a laundry room; two faculty offices; and two computer workstations for students.  

The crowning touch is the mammoth 6,000-square-foot storage facility for the Patricia Athey Brown Theatrical Costume Collection, which includes more than 15,000 items on its bracket/arm/pipe hanging system.  

The costume shop was designed as a laboratory for students to experience how a professional costume shop functions in a repertory theatre. The layout reflects the “traffic patterns” of the students, who work in teams on at least two productions at a time.  

The costume and wig & makeup facilities share several attributes, including a built-in compressed air system, used, for example, for airbrush makeup application of prosthetics and painting fabrics. Every room has windows with daylight to ensure color accuracy. Safety was a primary concern during the design of the building, which has flammables cabinets; an electrical system designed to handle the load of a small town; and several independent operating exhaust systems, to ensure the safety of students, whether working with urethanes or dyes.  

The new costume and wig & makeup facility is adjacent to the “rest of” the School of Design and Production – the School’s technical production facilities, including the scene shop and paint shop – to guarantee that students are prepared for working as part of a professional team. It is also conveniently located directly across the street from three of NCSA’s five theatres, rehearsal spaces, and three sound stages.  

The School of Design and Production at the North Carolina School of the Arts offers a comprehensive program of instruction and practice in 12 different concentrations – including costume design, costume technology, and wig and makeup design (undergraduate and graduate study). For more information, visit www.ncarts.edu.  

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Media: There will be an open house at the new Costume, Wig and Makeup Building from 4-6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8. If you would like to attend, please contact Marla Carpenter at 336-770-3337 or carpem@ncarts.edu. (The event, an invitation-only reception for donors, is not open to the general public.)