As the renowned The Phantom of the Opera continues along its U.S. tour, folks may not know that there’s an important piece of Akron on it: wardrobe supervisor Sally Howe.
The Akron native, who got her start in theater wardrobe work at the former Carousel Dinner Theatre in Akron, purchases nearly all of the Phantom tour’s dance accessories, most importantly the women’s pointe shoes, from Stage Center in Akron.
Howe, who has worked for producer NETworks Presentations for six years, previously worked on the Les Misérables tour and will start her fourth year with Phantom at the end of this month. She is a Hoban High School graduate who got her start at Carousel during high school when her mother, Ruth Howe, was a stitcher there.
For Phantom, Sally Howe outfits nine corps de ballet women as well as three male dancers in the ballet shoes of their choice plus period-looking heeled, lace-up shoes; leotards; unitards; tights; and dance trunks from Stage Center in North Hill.
Husband and wife Kenneth Johnson and Debra Nagle have owned the store for 35 years. Howe, who has known the couple since she began working at Carousel in 1990, also worked a couple stints over the years at Stage Center, which outfits dancers in all genres from throughout the region.
When Howe became wardrobe supervisor for Phantom, she turned to the personal touch of her trusted hometown dance store rather than calling on New York suppliers.
“I’d rather give them the business,” said Howe, 44.
“Which is wonderful for a small business,” Akron proprietor Nagle added.
Howe, who recently spent a two-week break in London, stopped at the Akron store recently to pick up a new pair of demipointe Grishko shoes for actress Katie Travis, who stars as Christine.
The actress playing the ingenue Christine — who receives voice lessons from the Phantom and is pulled from the corps de ballet to replace the diva Carlotta — does not go up en pointe (on the tips of her toes) in the show. She wears a demipointe shoe to look like she’s outfitted like the rest of the corps.
Each dancer has very specific needs and tastes about her pointe shoes, Howe said.
“We have to give them the pointe shoes that they request,” said the wardrobe supervisor, who orders brands including Bloch, Capezio, Gaynor Minden and Freed from Stage Center.
All of the period shoes as well as the tips of the pointe shoes must be rubberized for the tour to keep the Phantom dancers safe on the tour’s slippery deck, which is placed over the stage in each city.
In the past, Howe also has ordered Russian pointe shoes as well as “special makeup” custom-designed pointe shoes from New York or London that have taken more than three months to procure for Phantom ballerinas.
Another specialty item is the Degas-style white tutu that each ballerina wears, commissioned for the show from Parson-Meares of New York.
Each pointe dancer in Phantom wears three pairs of pointe shoes in rotation, performing in one pair as they let another dry out. On average, the three rotating pairs last six weeks, Howe said.
The tour currently stars Derrick Davis as the Phantom and Northeast Ohio native Trista Muldovan as Carlotta. Dale Rieling, whose home base is in both Northeast Ohio and the New York area, is music director.
Phantom, which came through Cleveland over the summer, is back in Ohio now with a Cincinnati run that ends Sunday, before moving on to Toledo Tuesday through Dec. 11. See www.thephantomoftheopera.com/ustour.
Howe, who wore a black Phantom jacket with the famous mask logo recently in Akron, talked about the bag of laundry each dresser is responsible for, for each cast member he or she is assigned to. She travels with an assistant and two star dressers, and also hires 10 people in each tour city: eight dressers, a laundress and a stitcher.
Howe herself started out on the Phantom tour as a star dresser for actresses playing Christine and Carlotta.
“They always had water, they always had tea, or hot water with lemon, cough drops, throat drops,” she said. “It’s more than the wardrobe. You just get to become really good friends and they rely on you.”
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com. Like her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kclawsonabj or follow her on Twitter @KerryClawsonABJ .