so my company sent me to a wig styling certificate program at the Theatre School at DePaul for the past week. after 35 hours of learning how to wash, color, style and maintain theatrical wigs i can tell i’ve only scratched the surface of this art, but it’s amazing. working on period styles on theatrical wigs is really a lot less like doing hair, and a lot more like sculpture. the medium (human hair) has it’s own unique characteristics, but just like sculpting with metal or clay, you have a series of techniques and materials with which to achieve the desired shape. and like building props or scenery or costumes for the stage, building wigs for the stage requires that you design the wig to be viewed from 40 or 100 feet away. so a pile of beautiful curls that looks stunning up close might look like a shapeless mass of nothing when viewed from the back of the house, and vice versa, exaggerated shapes and colors that look odd up close will read beautifully under the stage lights.

i’d really like to get into building and styling wigs for the stage on a freelance basis, but the start up costs are pretty challenging (a human hair wig can run $600-1500 just to start, before you’ve even bought the materials to customize it).

anyway, here are some pictures: the blonde is a mid-1930’s american style, and the brown one is turn-of-the-century gibson girl.