TU’s theatrical costumes find new home with Tulsa PAC

And shook his head. And laughed.

“When we got all this in here, I was just like, ‘I’ll see you all later.’ It is really overwhelming,” said the CEO of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.

It still is. The old exercise center at Boeing Park is full of rack after rack after rack of costumes. If you’ve got a sartorial need, it can be fulfilled here: tuxedos, Medieval and Victorian dresses, faux straw hats, rubber horse head masks.

And so many boxes and containers yet to unpack.

Don’t be fooled — it’s a boon for the local theatrical community, unfolding one cataloged piece of clothing at a time.

It all began several years ago with a city councilor who was losing her day job. Crista Patrick worked 15 years at the University of Tulsa, where she ran the Theatre Department’s costume shop and taught classes.

When TU decided to close its theater program, Patrick was out of a job, and 40 years or so of costumes and accessories were suddenly homeless.

Patrick estimates that during her time at TU she would lend her expertise and TU’s treasure trove of costumes to about 50 local productions a year. So she set out to find a new home for what had been the tools of her trade for a decade and a half.

“We don’t have a lot of costumes around this community,” Patrick said. “And so I didn’t want, especially the smaller theaters, to lose that resource.”

After kicking around some ideas, she set her sights on the PAC.

“I wanted a public entity to be in charge. That way it could be equitable for all,” Patrick said. “And so I immediately started calling Mark.”

Patrick jokingly recalled that when she gave Frie and other PAC officials a tour of the costume department in the basement of TU’s Kendall Hall, “they walked around with their mouths hanging open a little bit, and they said, ‘We’ll do it.’”

But how? The PAC didn’t have room for the roughly 12,000 costumes — and countless accessories — that TU would eventually donate.

So Patrick went to work on the city, pleading with them to consider providing storage space. She even shed a few tears — and it worked.

For nearly two years, volunteers have spent several days a month cataloging what is estimated to be a total of 20,000 pieces. They’re not yet half way done.

In addition to the TU contributions, the two local costumers assisting in the project — Alice Wegley and Bruce Lewis — donated the items they have collected during their decades in the business.

Wegley said costumes and accessories have already been loaned to Theatre North, Theatre Tulsa, World Stage Theatre Co. and other local performing arts groups.

“If they say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for this,’ we can look on the computer. Oh, yeah, we have three of those,” Wegley said. “We can send them the pictures of the item, and they can say, ‘Oh, yeah, I want those,’ and then we know. It tells on the computer where it’s at. Each rack has a number, so it tells us exactly where it is.”

Frie said he is grateful to all the parties involved in what he described as a total team effort. The donated costumes from TU and the donated storage facility from the city will allow the PAC to further assist the nonprofit community partners that put on dozens of productions a year at the PAC.

“We felt this was just too important to just let this go into the wind, so to speak,” Frie said. “Part of our philosophy and vision with a PAC Trust is we offset the costs, the expense to be in the Performing Arts Center. We get facility grants to these (local) companies to make it affordable for them to be in our spaces.

“And it just made perfect sense that we could carry on this vision of making sure that not only are we helping you get in the space, but now we can help you costume your show. And it’s just kind of an added layer of how we can serve our groups.”

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