Marat/Sade (2015)
Costume Design – Adams State University Theatre
Full Production Description:
This immersive staging of Peter Weiss's avant-garde historical drama demanded a hybrid design approach—blending 18th-century aesthetics, asylum-inspired staging, and grotesque theatricality. The set was a deconstructed cellblock with rusted scaffolding and sterile flooring. Costume work included period garb stylized with revolutionary flair, distressing, and clown-like exaggeration.
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- Hand-dyed and distressed fabrics for a grungy institutional look
- Built tiered scaffolding units for immersive surround staging
- Sculpted props such as quills, chains, straitjackets, and symbolic red/white/blue braids
- Created hybrid looks: powdered wigs, corsets, period tunics blended with prison uniforms
- Implemented quick-change methods for actor-musicians
- Collaborated with lighting and music teams to match design tone to sensory overload
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- Embraced controlled chaos to reflect the show's tension between order and revolution
- Used theatrical design to comment on surveillance, madness, and cyclical violence
- Balanced aesthetics with safety across an intense, movement-heavy ensemble
- Created a haunting, clown-inflected atmosphere that reinforced the Brechtian structure
