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  • 1.  Dressing Rooms

    Posted 06-10-2022 18:54
    Is there a required number of dressing rooms that are needed for theatre programs? Do they need bathrooms? Can they use hall bathrooms that patrons use?

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    Karen Wiebe
    Drama Director
    Randall K. Cooper High School
    KY
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  • 2.  RE: Dressing Rooms

    Posted 06-11-2022 17:25

    Current practice is at least three dressing rooms - one for male, one for female and one that can be assigned as needed. Many schools are doing this as two large "chorus" rooms and one smaller "star" room.

    Should have private bathrooms (not mixing with public) and access to a shower. 

    It's important to student safety that the backstage area can be separate from the house securely. 



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    Kristi Ross-Clausen
    Safety Maven/Consultant
    IATSE 470/Actors Equity
    Alliance for Wisconsin Theatre Education
    Association for Quality in AV Board
    AVIXA/USITT
    Teacher, Author, Speaker
    Appleton, WI
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Dressing Rooms

    Posted 06-13-2022 11:16
    Karen-
    This is an important area to be checking on.  Providing adequate and appropriate dressing rooms for the performing arts is equally important to providing adequate and appropriate locker rooms for  sports teams. 
    The numbers of dressing rooms is dependent on the number of individual mirror locations in each room.  Depending on the available room sizes, the number of rooms required will be determined by the number of individual locations that can be installed in each room.  From a Northern Architecture website,:
    "A shelf-type makeup table of 18 in. width and 30 in, height should be built around the walls of the dressing rooms with a 2 ft 6 in. or 3-ft space for each actor. In front of each actor will be a makeup mirror with a 75-wett light on each side. Benches or chairs 18 in. high, sufficient for all of the makeup positions, should be provided."

    They do need bathrooms, which should not be shared by the public.  Again comparing to sports facilities, there should be showers available.

    To consider professional requirements dressing rooms as a model, Actors Equity requires:
    "The guidelines for dressing rooms state that Equity members must be provided with properly heated and ventilated dressing rooms with adequate lights, mirrors, shelves and wardrobe hooks. Florescent lighting is not permitted for make-up purposes, which is why incandescent bulbs flank dressing-room mirrors. Also, for every six actors assigned to a dressing room, there must be a washstand with hot and cold running water. Lavatories and showers are not required to be in the actual dressing room, but must be on each floor, or alternating floors."

    Adequate ventilation is essential; no just comfort ventilation of HVAC, but industrial-type ventilation engineering to manage the hair spray, makeup and other chemical used in the space.

    I hope this info is helpful.
    Take care and stay safe.
    Bill

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    Bill Reynolds (he.him.his)
    Lecturer in Theater Safety & Health
    Yale School of Drama/Yale Repertory Theatre
    203-314-1543---cell
    Bill.reynolds@yale.edu
    Author: Safety and Health for the Stage
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Dressing Rooms

    Posted 06-14-2022 11:30
    Hi Karen

    For our dressing room situation it really depends on the number of cast members you have. If you are looking at building dressing rooms for your school/theatre then I would go for the professional standard as much as possible when designing them. However, I realize not all high schools can function on the same level as college and professional theaters and we often have to get creative and make do with the spaces we already have. 

    Our school is in a unique situation where we rent the local community theatre spaces (main stage and blackbox) for most of our shows since we don't have a theatre on campus. The blackbox has a male and female dressing room and a bathroom separate from the audience. And this works perfect for smaller cast shows. All of our kids fit into those two dressing rooms.  Their main stage has a male and female dressing room that can house about 18 kids each. Since we have musical casts of close to 70 actors we always end up renting an additional classroom  (or sometimes two depending on cast size) next to the backstage area as additional dressing room space. These classrooms are bigger and can hold more students and have an additional bathroom next to them. We set up tables and chairs to create make-up stations for the actors. Obviously these rooms don't come with mirrors so we bring our own small hand held mirrors for each actor to use. You can get them for a buck at a dollar store and they work well enough for our purposes. This area is also far enough away from where the audience enters the theatre that we can block it off so they are not sharing the bathrooms with the audience. 

    We do hold our student directed one acts in a rehearsal space we have on campus and we use this same classroom make-up station set up for our dressing rooms since we have zero actual dressing rooms on campus. We put up divider walls to block off the bathrooms and classrooms we are using for dressing rooms so the audience doesn't have access to them. It is important that the audience stay separated from the backstage space for a number of reasons. First of all security, you want to make sure the actors are comfortable and not worrying about random people in their space. We make a huge deal about not inviting people who are not directly working on the show backstage. We actually have badges for all production staff to wear so there is no question who belongs backstage. If someone doesn't have a badge (other than the student performers) they cannot be backstage, period.
    Secondly, you don't want the actors distracted by mingling with the audience in the bathrooms. Your performers need to stay focused on the show and not have to worry about the bathroom being filled with audience members and they have to wait. Or trying to touch up makeup and the audience getting in the way. Plus, family and friends will want to talk to the performers if they see them in the bathroom or hallway which ends up distracting them which gets them out of character and possibly causing them to be late for a cue. Or if there is an emergency backstage, like an actor getting sick. You want them to have their own space away from the audience for that.
    Thirdly, as performers we are trying to immerse the audience into the world of the play. If they see the actors running around in costume out of character before or during the play it ruins that illusion and pulls them out of the story of the play. To maintain a professional quality I only allow my actors to interact with the audience after the show is over. Once the final curtain falls then they are allowed to mingle with the audience in the lobby.
    Hope this helps!

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    Jillian Lietzau
    Lutheran High School
    CO
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    Original Message


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