Behind the scenes in the UB costume shop

Step into the UB costume shop days before the dress rehearsal of the Department of Theatre & Dance’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Production costume designer and UB junior Ariel Kregal wears a magenta dress over jeans, a scarf, boots, cat ears and a red arc of makeup that curves from her forehead down to her nose, road-testing a possible look for the character Hippoylta, Queen of the Amazons.

“I’m a little nervous, but I have great trust in the people here,” Kregal says. She then reconsiders. “I’m not nervous at all. I think I’m just super-excited.”

Costume shops traditionally have been the organic, sometimes mystical crossroads of theaters. Their stock-in-trade is a kind of alchemy to make eye-catching costumes, lots of them, often with little more than artistic ingenuity.

In that tradition and by that measure, UB’s costume shop, located in Room B77 in the serpentine basement of the Center for the Arts and guided by the same woman for 33 years, can take a bow.

“Along with the art and theater and all those amazing things, there is the bonus of working with students,” says Donna Massimo, the guiding force, source of continuity, and heart and soul of the costume shop, who started her career when the university’s theater costume shop was in Harriman Hall on the South Campus.

“I loved working with students more than I imagined.”

With the opening performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” set for tonight, the costume shop is etching another chapter in its legacy of creativity and imagination.

Ironically — days before the play takes the stage — it remains a refuge for Kregal, a “serene and calm” oasis, she says. “A place where you can step into when it gets too dramatic otherwise, on stage and in real life.”

A few steps away from Kregal is sophomore Gina Boccolucci, costume designer of the department’s previous show, “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” sewing a costume for Puck. Boccolucci echoes Kregal’s idea of the costume shop as a place where she feels safe, accepted.

“It’s a place to get away from all the hectic stress of your class,” says Boccolucci. “You go there to release your creativity. Anything you can imagine, they can create.”

Facing her on the table where she works is a lion’s head made of brown craft paper. It’s to be worn by Snug the Joiner, a popular supporting role in the Shakespearean comedy.

Kregal designed the lion’s head — complete with the lookout point behind bright white teeth and accompanying paper claws  — with the help of assistant costume shop manager Cynthia Darling.

“Kind of adorable,” Darling says, admiring the head and showing her penchant for punctuating the costume shop’s banter with quick one-liners.

“We’re the kitchen of the house,” she says. “People come in here with their problems, and we are the parental units. You wouldn’t believe it. But we’re moms. We can handle it.”

And the most overwhelming aspect of the costume shop probably is the flood — the absolute overload — of materials, colors, shapes, odd wall signs (Dye Wall of Fame and an article on redheads with a photo of Ann-Margret), fitting forms (one of the shop’s most valued pieces of equipment), spectacular finished costumes, scraps of fabric lying on the floor, and the consistent and reassuring hum of Judy Curtis’ sewing machine, all occupying a room the size of a high school shop class with an oddly scenic view of Baird Point.

Each costume tells a story, Massimo says. The six fairy costumes with their hand-painted unitards for an ethereal look. The stately elegant purple-and-gold Queen of the Amazon costume. The ruffled peplum extending from Hermia’s corset.

“It’s a petri dish of tactile and visual stimulation,” she says. “It’s an atmosphere where people can let go and let their creative juices flow freely. There are no mistakes here. We call them happy accidents because we are always in the process of discovering a new way to look at things and use materials.”

Massimo brought food this morning for motivation and to “create community,” especially this week in an attempt to soothe the dark mood hanging over the shop after the election, she says. And no list of elements in the costume shop would be complete without the presence of what Massimo describes as “an unclothed actor” anxiously awaiting his costume fitting.

All that doesn’t include the auxiliary rooms and their contents. The craft room houses a giant eyeball worn by a dancer from the Ballet of Sensory Organs in the production of “How Did We?” (“We found happy homes for the mouth, nose and ear,” Massimo says.). On the other side is a sturdy and enduring 6-foot Mr. Peanut from “Steel Pier,” watching over the room like the Dr. T.J. Eckleburg billboard in “The Great Gatsby.”

Some of Boccolucci’s favorite costumes, such as the silver chef coat she designed for “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” hang in the wardrobe storage, a 45-year-old, almost-endless collection of interchangeable parts. Rows and rows of shoes, all sorted by size and style, fill another room. Visitors making it back to the main costume room should ask any of the students or staff about the story behind the half-donkey/half-human head to be used in this week’s performance.

Massimo says she “couldn’t tell you” how many shows she has done. “But when creativity, science and problem-solving come together, it’s a glorious thing.”

“There are 18 people in this cast,” she says. “I don’t think any one of them who has come here hasn’t left their fitting absolutely loving what we have done. They see what they are doing on stage in a new light. The costumes become a part of how they see their character.”

As if on cue, Jessica Alexander — who plays Snug the Joiner — sits outside the costume shop door as student tours and other visitors pass by, buzzing in anticipation of the upcoming debut.

“Do you like your lion’s head?” Darling asks.

“Oh my god, I’m so excited,” Alexander says. “It’s amazing. I just can’t wait.”