Theatre practice is necessarily collaborative. Costume production requires active, ongoing dialogue across multiple networks of communication: a back-and-forth with the director about the overall vision, problem solving with the costume shop, collaborating with actors in developing their characters, and logistical responses to rehearsal reports. But how much of our personal or pedagogical energy goes into thinking about the role that communication and collaboration plays in our art form?

Between social media and the current political moment, our national discourse has never been more insular or polarized. Generative AI is helping students turn away from asking humans for help because there is a robot available 24/7 to solve problems. Higher education needs experts in interpersonal communication and interdisciplinary collaboration. Costume practitioners to the rescue!

In this year’s workshop, we turn our embodied practice to our collaborators: how do we approach different relationships: in our departments, in our productions, and in our classrooms. We will brainstorm ways to foreground the collaborative nature of costume production, highlighting communication skills in our curriculum, and finding new ways to invite them into classroom practice.