♪♪ ♪♪ Ashley, request from the director, by the time we get to the party can you lose the big rose in your hair?

Yeah.

And then for the rest of the show.

Yes.

Okay.

♪♪ Angie Lampe: I've done almost 300 shows in my life.

Yes, I've been at this a long time.

♪♪ Angie: What makes good costuming is if it brings the character to life and if you don't think about the costume.

It's not a compliment if someone leaves a show and says, oh the costumes were good.

It's a compliment to everyone involved if someone leaves the show and says, that's a good show.

♪♪ Angie: We found lots of bits leftover from other shows, which was perfect for this sort of scrappy hodgepodge approach to cabaret.

So it just looks like bits of things found around an old theatre brought together.

I dyed this because I'm trying to do sort of a fragile look for her.

Angie: Sort of faded, sort of been around the block.

Sally Bowles is a night club performer who is down on her luck, she's not very talented.

It's also in Germany in between World War II.

And so it's really about that country, what is going on at that time.

♪♪ ♪♪ This need lingerie straps up here because it's going to fall off her shoulders and then think with the weight of this it will roll back or forward.

Angie: Sewing is too confining a word, so we say build.

And I really think that comes from the fact that we don't just sew things, we do millinery, we make hats.

Costuming is one of the last places in the world where people are still making hats.

And so we're keeping old skills alive.

We make corsets.

We make any period of costuming whatever it takes.

♪♪ Angie: This room going all the way back is costumes.

So these are my hoard of suits and vests and pants, women's pants, Western wear, uniforms, so like bellhops, priests, military, waiters, lab coats, we use lab coats a lot.

This is where all of our period stuff is, and period is what we call Victorian and earlier, we call that period clothing.

So like anything Victorian, Elizabethan, Edwardian, that sort of stuff is down that aisle.

♪♪ Angie: Theater is very collaborative.

It starts with the director who has a vision for how we're going to tell the story.

We all start with the same script, we all read the script.

And from the director it goes to the designers, the scenic designer, the lighting designer, the costume designers and any other designers, the choreographer.

And then it kind of goes out from there.

I have my team whether I have a hair person, I have a costume shop full of people.

This particular show I'm doing right now has a dresser and so I will teach her how to do the quick changes and make sure everyone gets dressed and looks good.

(laughs) Theatre is so glamorous.

♪♪ Angie: And then we have dressing rooms.

Each of them have their spot so we have our emcee right here with all of her lovely things and then we have I think three of the Kit Kat Girls.

They'll set up their makeup and get ready in here, do their hair.

Then they go up the back stairs to backstage and perform.

♪♪ Angie: Everybody needs art, everybody needs theater.

Yes, New York City is the mecca for theater.

Everybody dreams of being on Broadway but not everybody can and maybe not everybody wants to.

Here we go!

Angie: And that is why community theater has thrived for over 100 years is because there are people who want to try that, who want to have a taste of it.

♪♪ Angie: And it's really wonderful to watch people experience that and have an opportunity to step out of their regular lives.

♪♪ Angie: I'm a very visual person and it's fun to be creative.

I just -- I just love looking around at all the stuff or I love looking at the world and thinking, how can I tell that story?

And how can I create that?

And how can I make that?

And how can, you know -- so it's a big part of my life.

♪♪