A Day in The Life of the Dresser
Lili Salt paused for a second to gaze upon the stage. Then she glanced down at her bouquet of flowers and “thank you” cards in the dressing room. She took a deep breath, inhaling a unique combination of hairspray, sweat and Axe that would soon be just a memory. She turned off the light and shut the door.
A few hours earlier Salt was throwing clothes into the dryer, steam pressing wrinkled shirts and suit pieces and prepping all of her assigned presets for quick changes during the show. Meanwhile, cast members squeezed in between one another trying to get her attention to check out their costumes from the crowded rack that sat in the middle of the hallway.
“My main concern was Tony (who was played by Alex Carr),” Salt said. “I was his dresser for the whole show.”
Just beyond the curtain is where Salt stood throughout each night of the production, patiently waiting for the sudden moments of chaos that she would encounter during costume changes. When Carr stepped off stage to prepare for the “Dance at the Gym,” Salt was ready with his suit so that he could be right back on stage for the next scene. She continued to do this each time he ran off to transform into a new look.
“In Act 2 we had the speediest quick change ever into the Ballet sequence,” she said. “It made me nervous every time. And I never did any backstage work before so I honestly didn’t know what to expect.”
Salt recalls having been passionate about theatre since the seventh grade when she first started performing on stage. Now at 19 years old, she is a freshman here at Montclair State majoring in theatre studies with a minor in musical theatre.
West Side Story was the first big show that Salt has been a part of on a college level. She claims that the overall professionalism was significantly different than high school and the quality of everything was of such higher caliber than any show she has ever done.
“It was so brilliantly executed,” Salt said. “The set, the lights, the costumes, the singing, the dancing. It blew me away.”
Being in charge of something so seemingly insignificant was something that Salt really enjoyed. She loved how close she grew to all of the other talented cast and crew members in such a short amount of time — including the actors in the dressing room she was assigned to, the hair/makeup team and costume designer Samantha LaScala.
“Samantha did such a wonderful job designing the costumes,” Salt said. “They really brought out the differences between the two gangs and each character had their own distinct look throughout the whole show that really highlighted their personalities.”
While Salt loved the rush of adrenaline behind the scenes, she only wishes to one day be back on stage and performing at the Alexander Kassar theater. Her ultimate goal is to teach theatre arts at a high school level, but because of this experience she says she wouldn’t mind doing it on the side.
“Some people are dressers on the side from a normal job,” she said. “So if any of these talented faces from West Side Story make it big someday and remember little ol’ me as their dresser, I would love to do it again.”
During the final night of the show, Salt was greeted in her assigned dressing room with flowers and cards thanking her for the hard work she put into making the show a success. Everything from the friendships she made to the chaos behind the scenes to the very distinct smell of the theater stage are the things Salt says she won’t soon forget.
“It’s an exciting day to day experience,” said Peter Davis, the production manager for the department of theater and dance. “I’m really proud of the show.”
