Page 14 - APAP - Inside Arts - Summer 2020

VO!CE
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MEASURE
FOR MEASURE
At the Krannert Center, costume designers shift their handiwork to masks and gowns for local medical professionals
and other materials to residents interested in joining the effort.
“Community involvement was very important to this team,” says costume shop director Andrea Bouck. “We had people from
the community reaching out, all with varying levels of skill, but all ready to lend their time and efforts to help.”
To say it was well-received would be an understatement.
“We actually had to take down the volunteer form temporarily after we hit 400 forms submitted just so our shop could try to catch up,” says Bridget Lee-Calfas, the center’s advertising and publicity director.
Distributing materials to
that many volunteers was
a daunting—and at times stressful—task. But the Krannert Center staff was up for the
BY KRISTEN ANDRESEN
Spider-Man. Batgirl. Captain America.
Lots of superheroes wear masks. But the superheroes at the Krannert Center for the Arts make them.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, staffers from the Krannert Center’s Costume Shop joined forces with campus partners at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to launch I-PPE, a team dedicated to designing, prototyping
and producing the products needed by the area’s medical community. Costume designers shifted their focus to creating technical renderings and patterns for manufacturers, as well as producing gowns, masks and head coverings. In addition,
they provided patterns, fabric
12 INSIDE ARTS SUMMER 2020