Styling Success: Senior Louisa Mills’s success in East’s costume department

Rip.

The zipper on Ariel’s pink dress tore as she changed out of her mermaid outfit, and she needed to be back on stage in less than a minute. Then-freshman Louisa Mills hand flew to her pocket — stuffed with safety pins, mic tape, bobby pins and hair ties — and tried not to tremble as she pinned the back of the dress just in time for Ariel to shuffle on stage for her cue. 

“It is a pure adrenaline rush, especially for me because I have this little amount of time to de-dress them, redress them, send them back on stage and make sure they look like a normal human,” Louisa said.

Now a senior and a Costumes Crew Chief of three years, Louisa built her reputation in theater not only for her masterful quick changes — 30 seconds being her personal best — but also for her commitment, creativity and management of the costumes crew. Her work has placed her as a finalist for the Johnson County Shooting Stars Production and Design award. 

Yet, she’s never taken a theater class at East. 

Louisa has been helping with costumes at Stage Right Performing Arts since 2017, and was encouraged by her older sister to join East’s costume crew her freshman year. For her first musical, “The Little Mermaid,” she spent hours after school and over winter break cutting out and hot gluing over 2,000 feathers for the seagull costumes. Her hands ached for days. 

The costumes department was nominated for a Blue Star award that year, mostly for its seagulls and Ursula costumes — an honor that motivated Louisa to keep pushing herself in expanding her skill sets to different areas like makeup, even if she didn’t know what she was doing. 

“In the words of my mother and myself, fake it ‘til you make it,” Louisa said. “[That was] my mantra with [The Wedding Singer].”

Seven mainstage shows and four years later, she was named East’s January Thespian of the Month — the hardest working student in theater selected by the Theater Exec Board.

“​​I just really like how she puts a lot of effort into every show she does and she makes it a priority to be there,” co-Costumes Crew Chief and junior Audrey Morehead said.

Louisa feels like she puts just as many hours into the productions outside of school as her friends enrolled in theater classes. Between taking measurements of cast members and braiding over 75 ribbons into a wig, Louisa clocked in 135 total hours of work on this year’s musical, “The Wedding Singer.”

“She’s not in a theater class and never has been but she’s a huge part of what makes theater happen,” Audrey said. “I love that she’s still involved in all of this even though she’s not in a physical theater class.”

Most of the costumes from this show were thrifted from places like Savers, donations or reused from prior years. After one of the performances this year, Louisa was complimented for the authenticity of the ’80s costumes as they weren’t the cheesy cliché ones, but oversized blazers and shoulderpads that people actually wore then. 

“I got to really show that I can put clothes together to make an [outfit] that looks real, which is really fun,” Louisa said.

Louisa’s creativity comes to life on “Bertha” — the mannequin in East’s dressing room that she uses to style her outfits. However, Louisa can’t sew, so she leaves the alterations to Costumes Coordinator Summer Finkelston and Audrey. She refuses to let what she can’t do limit her vision for a costume.

Beyond creativity, Louisa has a knack for organization. This year, she made a master spreadsheet of when and where all the costumes need to be for quick changes and shouts orders to guide people through the chaos backstage during shows. 

“After the dress rehearsal, I feel good about myself, and then it’s immediately, ‘Okay, what can we do better?’” Louisa said. 

With each show, Louisa adds to the running list in her Notes app of improvements she can make for the next performance. Next year, Louisa plans to attend Savannah College for Art and Design to major in graphic design. But they also have a costume design program there, so she wouldn’t be surprised if she found herself with safety pins pouring out of her pockets again.

“When you look back at it, it’s crazy to think that girl sitting there, cutting out 2,000 feathers, would someday become the girl [earning] scholarships for costumes and doing all these quick changes and getting [praised] for costumes,” Louisa said. “I would have never thought that would have happened. But it did and I’m really appreciative of everything that SME theater has given to me.”