The Costume Supervisor’s Toolkit

CHAPTER 3 Developing Good Communication Skills

The costume supervisor is a multi-skilled individual who, like the production manager, has to be a very astute and quick-thinking member of the creative team. A naturally persuasive person, the supervisor is responsible for so many aspects of the production and with so many different people that he or she has to be a great communicator, ‘a people person’ and a diplomat, but ideally, also a benevolent leader. Remember the ‘K’ for ‘kind’ in ROCK! The legendary costume designer Susan Tsu describes how ‘the costume shop can often be the pulse of the theater and . . . actors and techies gather there most often’.¹ It is this easy, calm and comfortable atmosphere that costume supervisors should aim to develop ...