EAST HADDAM, Conn. — In an unassuming building in East Haddam lives Broadway royalty.
Not people, but costumes once worn by some of the most famous theater stars in the world. At the Goodspeed Opera House Costume Shop, more than 300,000 outfits sit, not retired, not part of a museum, but waiting for their turn on the stage again.
Stephanie Wooley, who manages the shop, told FOX61 that when there is a new show at Goodspeed, it starts with sifting through the outfits.
“We find out who the designer is, and what period they’re looking at,” she said. “And we start to go through our stock and going through our minds to see what we can do to help getting costumes on stage.”
She added: “We’ll have meetings, they’ll show us renderings, and then we start doing more pulls.”
Everything is here. “From Sunset Boulevard” to “Showboat.” There’s Joseph’s amazing technicolor coat, and a simpler red dress from a little orphan known as Annie.
The most expensive? Dresses from a show called “The Pirate Queen”. It didn’t do well on Broadway, but outfits from the show cost over $250,000.
There are so many outfits here that if they line them up, they’d go over a mile long.
And that’s why the Goodspeed Costume Shop is one of the five biggest costume shops, not just in the state, not just in the country, but in the whole world.
Matt Scott is a meteorologist at FOX61 News. He can be reached at mscott@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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