©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Mt. Airy costume designer is surprised at ‘who divas are’
by CLARK GROOME

Mt. Airy resident Millie Hiibel, one the busiest costume designers in the area, is currently working on the costumes for the 1812 Productions world premiere of Evan Smith’s Daughters of Genius, which begins previews May 19 at St. Stephen’s Theater, opens May 24 and runs through June 18.

“As a costume designer,” according to Mt. Airy resident Millie Hiibel, “you get to create characters.” Hiibel, one the busiest costume designers in the area, is currently working on the costumes for the 1812 Productions world premiere of Evan Smith’s Daughters of Genius, which begins previews May 19 at St. Stephen’s Theater, opens May 24 and runs through June 18.

A native of Winnemucca, Nev., Hiibel grew up on a ranch that had no television. One of nine children, she spent a lot of her childhood reading and drawing,

A circuitous root through the University of Nevada at Reno took her to Seattle where she earned a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in 1998.

“I was always interested in fashion,” she explained in a recent interview. “When I was younger I would do these fashion illustrations. I never pursued that. Growing up poor in a small town, you didn’t have a lot of options. You pursued being a teacher or a doctor. It was a very limited view of what I could become. The idea of becoming an artist never appealed to me because it was not a ‘real job.’”

That changed while she was at the University of Washington. “While I was there I met some people who were in the theater. I’d always been interested in theater and had always been interested in clothes. I decided to take a costume design class. The woman who teaches [that], Deb Trout, really encouraged me.”

After graduating from college, she spent a year before deciding to go to graduate school in design. She landed at Temple University and studied under the now-retired design professor Neil Bierbower.

After receiving her MFA in 2002 Hiibel, 32, has worked steadily, with a lot of the work in Philadelphia at 1812, the Lantern Theater, Act II and the Philadelphia Theatre Company. She has designed for Temple Theater, Ursinus College, and both Arcadia and Drexel Universities.

Her most visible assignment is probably as the costume designer for the National Constitution Center’s Freedom Rising, the live presentation that introduces the center to its visitors.

Many people have asked her why she hasn’t become a fashion designer. “For me being a costume designer is artistically very fulfilling. You get to make choices based on character. Because I love to read and because I was an English major, that’s more fascinating to me. I love to read stuff and interpret who those people are and then transfer that to what they wear.

“You’re not just creating a costume. I’m creating a wardrobe. I have to think about the big picture. You have to put it in context.”

While she has designed for all kinds of shows, she finds working on contemporary shows very difficult and very misunderstood.

The process is a collaborative one, she said. It begins before rehearsals when the director and designers meet to discuss the play and what will be needed from the design team, which also includes the set, lighting and sound designers.

It’s then off to sketch. After her designs have been approved, she has to decide what can be bought and what needs to be built (which is the theater word for making a costume from scratch).

“Often times with contemporary shows people who hire the costume designer tend to think, ‘Oh, it’s really easy, anybody can do this.’ That’s nonsense.

“I don’t just think about who these people are and what they’re going to wear. I think about color. I think about contrast. You don’t want, for instance, to have some lighter color on the bottom than on the top. You want to bring focus to the actor’s face. It’s the little things that you do that people don’t notice.”

For the most part, she reported, her dealings with directors and actors have been positive. She related one incident, however, when the director would leave her instructions in text messages. She said that not only did those messages need discussion but that the director was clearly treating her like a servant.

As far as actors are concerned, “I’m always surprised at who the divas are. Someone you’d never think would be a diva is. Diva is boy or girl, straight or gay. I just costumed an actress who was nominated for a Tony Award, and I thought she was going to be a problem. She was one of the easiest people to dress. You never know.”

Not only does Hiibel work as a designer, she teaches design at Arcadia University. She was the recipient of a 2004 Barrymore Award nomination for the Lantern Theater’s Comedy of Errors and a 2005 Independence Foundation Fellowship.

She loves living in Mt. Airy, she said. When she first came to interview at Temple she arrived in Philadelphia by train from New York. She knew nothing about Philadelphia and was not impressed by the neighborhoods the train went through. When she was accepted, she looked up where her professors lived, found two were in Mt. Airy. She checked it out, fell in love with it and has been here ever since.

At the moment, designing and teaching are her life. “I often feel like ‘Why don’t I have hobbies?’ My life is fulfilling enough that I don’t need to supplement it.”