Digs

By Jen Colletta
Collegian Editor
March 28, 2007

Sophomores Amanda Brothman and Kelly Lazarowski know, perhaps better than anyone, just how much mess a pile of clothes can create. As co-costume mistresses for the Masque, they have spent endless nights cooped up in the organization’s Costume Room, located in the basement of the Union.

Kelly Lazarowski and Amanda Brothman work in the Masque's Costume Room. - Jen Colletta

“We like to call it the dungeon,” elementary/special education and American studies major Lazarowski said.

The Costume Room is a cramped, crowded clothes closet that the Masque uses to house its myriad of shirts, dresses, pants and accessories. Racks of clothes are stacked upon one another along two of the walls, the age of the garments evident from the musty smell that the room emits.

“It’s really cool to think how many people have worked in here. There’s a lot of Masque history in this room,” Lazarowski said. “Every show we’ve ever done is represented here.”

Lazarowski and Brothman spend night after night in the Costume Room before each Masque production, preparing the costumes that the cast will wear on stage.

“They’re upstairs having fun on stage, and we’re stuck down here,” communication major Brothman said.

In the weeks leading up to a show, the costume mistresses spend nearly 20 hours a week in the Costume Room, sewing and mending each article of clothing that the actors will wear. In the past year, the girls have even put in two all-nighters, slaving away at the sewing machine until the sun came up.

“The radio is really our only source of entertainment while we’re down here working,” Lazarowski said.

There is no cell phone reception in the Costume Room, and the girls are rarely visited by any non-Masque students; most people don’t even know how to find the room.

“We did a couple things with the Students’ Government Association (SGA) and the African-American Student League (AASL) earlier in the year, and we had to really explain where to find the room,” Lazarowski said. “It’s really funny when people come down here for the first time; they’re like ‘woah.’”

Lazarowski and Brothman are never surprised when they hear this, considering the overwhelming amount of garments stored in the room; the rack closest to the door holds nearly 50 suit jackets, and there are about a dozen such racks, all stuffed from one end to the other with clothes.

Even though it’s quite difficult to navigate from one side of the Costume Room to the other, Brothman and Lazarowski have adjusted to their home away from home, knowing right where to find each costume that they’re working on. So next time your roommate complains about your pile of clothes on your dorm room floor, remind him or her that you don’t nearly have as much clutter as the Masque’s Costume Room.

collettaj1@lasalle.edu