Clothing KC Ballet’s Nutcracker dancers is a year-round project

“The Snow Queen tutu is probably my nemesis,” says Kansas City Ballet’s costume director Jennifer Carroll about one of the most famous costumes in all of ballet.

Carroll and her two team members are getting ready for one of KC’s most beloved holiday traditions: The Nutcracker. Carroll says that with seven casts and more than 200 costumes, Nutcracker prep is really a year-round endeavor. 

The ice maiden’s ethereal white tutu is in need of constant repair, Carroll says. Each performance is another chance for the signature tutu’s layers of delicate tulle and trim to be torn or smudged with makeup. But Carroll loves her job all the same.

Located in the basement of the Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity in the Crossroads is KC Ballet’s costume shop and Carroll’s fiefdom. It’s where the magic that you see on stage starts to take shape. There are rows and rows of garments in one room, tables with sewing machines, fitting rooms, and even a cabinet filled with mouse heads and other Nutcracker paraphernalia. 

The Nutcracker’s extravagant costumes were designed by award-winning costume designer Holly Hynes and her assistant Ricky Laurie 10 years ago. They were made at 29 studios across the country. Once a set of costumes is designed, a call is sent out to find the right artisans with the right skill sets needed to create each fanciful costume, such as the Sugar Plum Fairy’s tutu. Adorned with hand-sewn plums and velvet embossed leaves crafted with cast iron stamps, the costume is one of the show’s stars.

KC’s own costume department made The Nutcracker’s soldiers’, angels’, cherubs’ and tea girls’ looks. The whole process from design to wearable garments took nearly a year.

During production, Carroll’s days are filled with emails, paperwork and fittings. Including Carroll, the costume department only has three full-time workers. They hire a couple seasonal workers closer to showtime. Every year, the costumes are altered to fit each dancer, and there are several hundred performers between the various casts.

Betti Jo Diem, costume shop manager, and Becci Kelbaugh, costume shop assistant, do most of the sewing and alterations—if Carroll is at a machine, it means they’re behind. “I think the main thing I try to do is make sure that the vision that she’s [Hynes] created stays her vision and what she created, especially as we get to this point where we’re having to replace things,” Carroll says. 

The garments have been in their care for 10 years now, with many of them in need of mending or replacing. Carroll keeps binders of used fabrics that include original designs and repair notes. Some of the fabrics aren’t made anymore or are too hard to find, so it’s Carroll’s job to find something close enough. 

“I need to make sure the costumes look just as good now as they did years ago,” Carroll says. “The show needs to look good and be just as magical for that child coming for the first time now as it did for that child that came for the first time in 2015.”

Carroll says her favorite part of the job is working with the dancers—especially the young student performers. She enjoys helping calm their nerves. “[The Polichinelles and cherubs] are some of the youngest in the show, and they’re kind of my favorite,” she says. In awe of the process (and anxious to take the stage), the student performers often have a lot of questions, and Carroll doesn’t mind answering them.

GO: November 29– December 24. Times vary. Muriel Kauffman Theatre.

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