Facilitating communication and agency when working with youth:
Support agency and choice, ask guiding questions, model, and create space for multiple forms of communication.
One consistent issue I have found when costuming young people is getting accurate information about how a costume fits and feels. While adult actors (usually) have the bodily awareness and self-confidence to tell a costume designer that a garment is too tight or makes them feel dysphoric, young people may not have had a lot of practice self-advocating or assessing how they feel. They may be worried about disappointing you as an adult and authority figure, or struggle to break down how they’re feeling beyond “I don’t like it.”
Creating space for young actors to share their experience and opinions, regardless of whether or not the feedback they give you informs your ultimate design, shows that you value their insight and respect them as individuals.
It also sets the stage for honestly and openness when you ask more vulnerable and personal questions later about how their clothes feel on their body.
Engaging them in the design process encourages self-discovery, critical thinking, and exploration of identity through clothes. In educational theatre, this is a key part of the process. However, even in professional theatre, young actors should be given opportunities for agency, self-expression, and choice. Encouraging self-discovery and identity development may not be your job, but you can play a valuable role in helping them practice self-advocacy, and become more comfortable expressing their feelings.
Treat the actor as a collaborator, not a doll.
Ask questions about how they see their character.
These questions do not have to be design-related or directly inform your design, but show that you value their perspective, knowledge of the character, and their sense of self.
What are your initial thoughts about this character?
What do you see in your character that I wouldn’t know just from reading the script?
Is there anything you’re really excited about with your costume? Is there anything you’re concerned about?
[This] is in the script/in usual representations of this character, but I want to avoid [problematic thing]. What do you think about that? What initially comes to mind about how your character might be different there?
Later, ask questions about what they might need from their costume. Be aware that teenagers are likely to have significant insecurities about things you might not even notice.
See more on this in the section on identity and self-image below.
Clearly communicate what the costume process will entail and what they can expect.
A young actor who reads a script where a character cuts off all their hair might not know that you don’t intend to do that if you don’t tell them.
Help draw distinctions between types of “I don’t like it”, but value them all:
“I don’t like it because it doesn’t feel like me,” “I don’t like it because it is physically uncomfortable,” and “I don’t like it because it is psychologically uncomfortable” are distinct, but might not be expressed that way.
Dig deeper into why they may not like it, even if they don’t know themselves. Young actors might not know or be able to articulate aspects of themselves or their experiences the same way older or more experienced actors may be able to. Provide some prompting and give them time.
Be willing to listen to their answer, even if it does turn out to be “I don’t like it because it’s ugly”/”it doesn’t feel like me.” We allow adult actors to give some feedback about whether a costume “feels” like their character, even if that feedback isn’t enacted. Allow the same for young actors.
Even if you don’t change the costume based on their feedback, giving them space to express their opinions and thoughts, and explaining why you’ve made those choices, generates trust and gives them more confidence sharing if physical problems with fit do arise in the future.
Introduce choice where possible, at whatever scale is possible.
Create opportunities to feel ownership over the costume, character, and process.
Choice may be between two pieces, two colors, or even over what order you try things on.
Create opportunities to share and prompt feedback
in a way that does not require the same amount of up-front, un-supported self-advocacy or un-supported self-awareness you might expect from more experienced adults.
Don’t assume that they will share their thoughts with you without some prompting or encouragement.
Remember that you are in an authority position. They do not want to disappoint you, and are often discouraged from pushing back against adults. When they are trying to please, they are unlikely to answer your questions about things that aren’t working honestly.
Don’t assume that they will know already that you care about their feedback and opinions, because many of the adults they know don’t.
They are frequently discouraged from advocating for themselves, and need practice to do so. Self-advocacy is a skill that has to be built.
Show them that you genuinely care if something about the costume is not right. Be clear that if something doesn’t fit, you are not disappointed or upset with them, and they have not done anything wrong.
Ask explicit, specific questions about aspects of the costume. Prepare questions that prompt communication, provide vocabulary, and be ready to model responses.
Kids are not asked how they feel very often, and don’t have a chance to practice how to answer that question. They may not have the vocabulary to describe how they feel.
Does this feel too tight? Does this feel too loose? Where?
Can you move in these shoes?
Is this itchy or uncomfortable?
Do you think this will still feel good if you wear it for a while?
Do you think this will still feel good if you do [x]?
Model how a costume may fit well or not fit, or how they might answer these questions.
Introduce play and creativity.
Particularly when working with very young people, play is a critical way to engage — and listen.
If you are modeling how a costume fits or doesn’t fit, try on something that obviously doesn’t fit, like their costume, or put something on incorrectly. This is playlistening, where you “lightheartedly adopt a less competent role. You’re not trying to fool anyone about your real capabilities. You’re not giving up your … responsibilities. You’re offering [the] child a bit of relief from the rigors of childhood, which include being smaller, weaker, less respected, less skilled, and less free to determine how life goes.” When you do something silly, they are empowered to show their own skills and knowledge, and there becomes less of a concern of disappointing you by responding incorrectly.
Create opportunities to share information they don’t feel capable of saying aloud at first ask.
Possibly provide a written method of sharing.
Encourage them to share with their guardians or other members of the production team if anything comes up later or when you’re not there, and give guardians an opportunity to get in touch with you.
Ask more than once. Allow them time to think about your questions and how they are engaging with the costume.
Be ready to make adjustments later in the process than you usually would allow. Expect things to take longer and leave more time to work.
Build in practical tests of costume pieces or other ways to determine if it will fit and be comfortable in a variety of contexts beside just their verbal response.
Don’t assume that they will necessarily be thinking forward to know if it will still feel comfortable and fit in other contexts, or have the same body awareness as adults to determine fit.
Have them wear the pieces for longer than a standard fitting to see how they feel over some time.
Bring some play and fun into the situation to prompt thought about how it feels beyond that immediate moment.
Do head-shoulders-knees-and-toes wearing the costume.
Do the macarena wearing the costume.
Show me a dance routine or something physical you can do wearing the costume.
Do a small fight call or actions from the show in the costume, even if it isn’t an extreme dance or movement-heavy show.
Be conscientious of how costumes might affect or interact with a young actor’s self-image and identity.
No aspect of your design is more important than a young actor feeling safe and supported. A certain amount of discomfort is expected when wearing a costume. It will feel unfamiliar, it will not feel like them because it is representing a character who is not them, and they will be nervous about performing, but an actor should not dread going to the theater because of their costume or the costume process. Some compromises may need to be made with this in mind, especially in educational theatre.
Adult actors can also be in stages of identity discovery and development, but we generally anticipate that they will come into the process with a greater amount of self-knowledge and already established identities.
Young performers may be just beginning to explore gender, sexuality, and the relationship of clothing to these categories. You may have an opportunity to be an early supporter as they begin to explore gender and sexuality.
Create space for them to talk about gender and the costumes, and listen carefully to what they say.
Dysphoria may be hard for them to identify or express.
Simply listening is valuable even if you cannot make changes to the costume, but often small or invisible-to-the-audience adjustments may be possible.
We are all familiar with stories of young people being forced to wear a dress
Try to create more space for adjustments and alternatives related to body image than you might for adult performers. If adjustment is not possible, help draw clear distinctions between the character and the performer. A young actor inherently has less experience doing this than an adult performer.
While some adjustments can be made later, try to determine what an actor might need from their costume from the beginning to avoid unnecessary anxiety for them and ease your process. When you ask questions about their character, ask some questions about their self-image and needs from their costume as well.
This should be as open-ended as possible to allow them to share what is important to them without pushing them towards a particular answer and introducing or affirming an insecurity.
Simply introducing a moment of privacy sets the stage for them to say something more personal. Asking the other young people in the space to leave, taking on a quieter tone, and excluding the adult observer communicate your intention without validating the insecurity itself. If they have something that’s really important to them to share, they will see the prompt.
Is there anything you’re concerned about with your costume or the costuming process?
Sometimes trying on costumes and wearing something new, especially in front of an audience, can be really vulnerable. Is there anything you’d like me to know so that I can help support you in that?
I want to make sure that you feel as supported and safe as possible to make big choices as a performer. Is there anything I should know so that I can help make that happen?
Maintain informational privacy here wherever possible. Sometimes a young person might say something that is a safety concern, but most of the time, their insecurities do not need to be shared, even with another adult. If a teen performer is sensitive about the acne on their back, or doesn’t want to wear tight leggings, this can be dealt with by you alone.