Creating an outfit from start to finish takes creativity and vision, which is exactly what Wendy Amorose, SF State’s Theatre Arts Department’s longest working employee, brings into the costume shops.

As the costume shop supervisor, Amorose has overseen the costume making for most of the major plays on campus including the 2008 spring semester’s productions of Don Juan with guest director Mark Jackson. He is one of the Bay Area's breakout playwright-directors and a lecturer in theater arts at SF State.

Amorose helps students create costumes that bring the theater performances to life and she loves every stitch of it. “It’s really wonderful because every student has their own unique talents,” said Amorose.

Although there are many late nights in the shop, Amorose is excited to be a part of the shows and doesn’t usually mind putting in the extra hours. “The middle eight weeks of the semester are really busy and I’ll work a lot of (overtime),” said Amorose.

Amorose came to SF State in the fall of 1975 as a freshman, graduated in 1980 and went out and worked for a couple of years. When her position became available, and after taking a leave of absence, she came back to SF State and has been there ever since.

Amorose loves working with all her students and loves to see them go out and make it in the real world.
“For one, Mark Carl Koss is the student we’ve been waiting for, and he’s going to make it on Broadway. I’ve been here 25 years, I can retire now,” Amorose said.

Koss has the special talent of getting costume designers to strive for their very best costumes, Amorose said.

“He can get you to rip apart something that you never thought you would rip apart. That’s real skill, to get people to want to strive for something that they thought they couldn’t achieve,” said Amorose.

As of now Amorose has no plans on retiring and is busy working on the upcoming plays for spring.

Look for Amorose’s work and the work of other costume design students in the musical City of Angels, in classic Hollywood fashion and directed by Barbara Damashek.

“It’s really big! It has 60 different looks and takes place in the 40s’,” said Amorose about City of Angels. “They are doing a movie in a movie, so a bunch of costumes have to be in black, white or grey, and then when they go to the real world the costumes are in color.”

City of Angels runs from May 2-11 and will be held in McKenna Theatre, on SF State campus.
To find out more on the latest in the theatre arts department at SF State visit http://theatre.sfsu.edu/ or http://theatreartsnews.blogspot.com.