CTC Spotlight: New Costume Director Amy Kitzhaber
Even though you may not know it, you might have seen Amy Kitzhaber’s work at the Tony Awards. On Beyoncé. On TV screens. On Broadway stages for some of the biggest shows in recent years.
Now, you’ll find her at Children’s Theatre Company, where she just began her role as Costume Director after almost two decades in New York City. Originally from Wisconsin and a graduate of St. Mary’s College in Winona, MN, Kitzhaber’s new role takes her back to her roots — but not without a fascinating career trajectory.
Kitzhaber’s “aha!” moment came early in her life when she was participating in her high school theatre program. She worked on costuming and was in the show, which propelled her to work in her college’s costume shop a few years later. “I was sitting in the audience during a run and thought ‘oh, it’s like making a painting, but with people and clothes — telling a story.’ That was my realization moment.”
A student of art history and graphic design — and a lover of theatre — Kitzhaber started her move eastward in Illinois, working for Little Theatre on the Square. “I went to Illinois, and I met a guy named Matthew. Then I worked in Louisville, KY, which I ended up leaving to go back to Little Theatre. Matthew moved out to New York City, and I thought ‘why not, we’ll see,’ and now we are married, so it all worked out!” Kitzhaber laughs.
After the big move to the east coast, Kitzhaber jumped into temp work, dabbling in project management for a pharmaceutical company. “I worked in a print production office that was exactly like The Office television show,” she adds. “Then, I met someone at — I think a birthday party — who mentioned that they were looking for a swing dresser for I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, an Off-Broadway musical revue.” This was Kitzhaber’s in. From there, she worked at Vineyard Theatre, Forbidden Broadway, and then Roundabout Theatre Company for six years as Wardrobe Supervisor.
On the Broadway side, Kitzhaber has done all things wardrobe, from hand-painting Anna and Elsa’s Frozen bedspreads for the 2018 Tony Awards to stitching for Spongebob the Musical. Kitzhaber also has worked on La Cage Aux Folles, White Christmas, The Late Show, The Tonight Show, and Quantico, and Beyonce’s Sasha Fierce tour. For one TV show, CBS’s Limitless, Kitzhaber spent weeks creating spandex garments for a superhero episode — that were on screen for only a few minutes. “Broadway is a lot more of doing repairs and fixing things that happen during the run. For TV, you can be asked to do anything,” she explains. “It’s a lot of altering garments that they already bought. Right before I moved here, I did some soft goods craft work for Disney — prop laundry for the Shanghai Beauty and the Beast production.”
As a freelancer, Kitzhaber was aware of work-life balance and decided she wanted to feel more settled and return to the Midwest, “I had been keeping an eye open for job posting this past year. It’s funny, because I had seen the CTC posting for Costume Director eight years ago, but I didn’t have any experience at the time.” Once Kitzhaber decided to look for fulltime work, she had one big thing she wanted to do before settling into a new job: travel the United States.
“Last summer, my husband and I bought a van and converted it because both of us had some time off. A friend of ours is a set designer, and I did the measurements and put in the research. We set to work with a plan and retrofitted the whole thing in NYC. Some of our friends had small yards, but we ended up doing a lot of work with the van parked on the city streets!”
Once the van was done, Kitzhaber and her husband (plus their dog, Toby, a schnauzer-chow mix) took off for two and a half months. “We started in NYC, then went to Burlington and the Boundary Waters. Then, we went down to Wyoming and the Grand Tetons, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, then up to Canada for Banff, Jasper, and Vancouver Island. From there, we went to Big Sur in California and then we drove all the way back,” she explains. “It was great, but it was a lot! We didn’t want to stop because when else were we going to be able to drive the backroads of these parks? Everywhere we went, we were saying ‘I could live here, I could live here!’ The trip reinforced the idea that we want to get out of the city and have more of a work-life balance.”
Her new position as CTC’s Costume Director, which she started in August, will ideally bring some of that balance — but that doesn’t mean Kitzhaber won’t be busy! “As the Costume Director, I facilitate everyone in costumes. I communicate all of the information, support the designers, and make sure everyone gets what they need to do each show,” she says. Her creative side still comes into play though, as she has been designing prototype masks for this fall’s Curtain Call Ball (click to see pictures), pulling ideas the “Versailles-glam” theme. “I think a big thing for me is coming into a place that has been going a long time and finding my place in that system. I’m enjoying it here and found it to be a nurturing process. There’s more space and time for the creative process than I have been used to!”
That space and time is one of the perks that comes with working for a non-profit, rather than commercial theatre. Kitzhaber adds, “At CTC, everyone seems more sincere about what they are doing and the impact that it has, because we are also an educational theatre. It really brings a different element to the work we do here. Commercial shows tend to be a lot more about making the bottom line, and here, theatre feels more heart-centered. Both types of theatres are necessary — it just depends on personal preference.”
Although she just started last month, Kitzhaber is already enjoying her time at CTC, citing her coworkers as inspiring because “everyone here is amazing at what they do and take a lot of pride in their work. At the staff meeting, everyone was sincerely excited to be here. I feel very lucky.”
We’re thrilled to have you join CTC, Amy! Welcome!
— Article written by Victoria Rabuse
Check our our opportunities page if you’re interested in joining the fabulous team at Children’s Theatre Company!
