Jessica is a Cutter/Draper who has been working in theatrical costume shops since 2008. She has always loved creating with her hands, and has been sewing, cross stitching, quilting, knitting, and crocheting since grade school.
At Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY), Jess majored in English, because it was the popular thing to do back then, and she thought that maybe she’d like to be writer—until she didn’t. Really, she much preferred her time spent working as a stitcher in the costume shop, where she was learning new skills every day, and also getting paid to do it. She took one pattern drafting and draping class just for the fun of it, and, truly, it was so much fun. (A liberal arts education with a focus on literature is a very useful background to have in this career, and in life in general.)
After college, Jess met her long-time mentor, Erica Hoelscher, with whom she was fortunate to collaborate with in the creation of many costumes over the course of nearly a decade. Starting as a volunteer at The Media Theatre (Media, PA), Jess then became an intern, where she took on the roles of Costume Design Assistant, Stitcher, Dresser, and Costume Designer. While the pay was low and the shop was the dining room table in her parents’ house, Jess feels lucky that she was afforded great opportunities to explore and learn new skills in patterning (Spring Awakening 2012) and tailoring (Forever Plaid 2013). Other early career credits include sewing (on that same dining room table) and occasional wardrobe support for the Philadelphia theater companies of Plays and Players (2012-2013), The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium (2012-2018), and Shakespeare in Clark Park (2012).
In the summer of 2013, Jess moved to Bethlehem, PA to work in the Lehigh University costume shop part-time, and also audited classes in the theatre department. While in this college setting, she realized that it might be worthwhile to get a formal education in the work that she was doing, and decided to look into grad school. In her second year at Lehigh, she held the position of Costume Apprentice, where she got one-on-one lessons in rendering techniques and technical costume creation. She fondly recalls creating 18th Century costumes in the half scale based off of the painting The Ridotto of Palazzo Dandolo by Pietro Longhi, and designing costumes for a student-devised piece (2014) and every tongue confess (2015).
During her two years living in Bethlehem, and returning every summer during grad school, Jess worked at Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre (Allentown, PA) as a stitcher (3 years) and assistant draper (2 years). She learned a lot in those five summers (2014-2018), working with some very talented technicians and designers, in a shop with windows. Her favorite shows she worked on at MSMT include Gypsy (2016), My Fair Lady (2017), and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (2018).
Jess attended University of Cincinnati—College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) (Cincinnati, OH) from 2015-2018. During her first year, she was uncertain whether she wanted to focus more on costume design or technology, but by her second year, she realized that she much preferred her time spent in the shop creating actual costumes to the time spent drawing imagined ones. She most loved patterning and stitching for Swan Lake (2016), Mack and Mabel (2017), Seussical (2017), and Gianni Schicchi (2018).
After graduating in April of 2018, Jess set out to find a job as a Draper, and later that year found it at The Hale Center Theater Orem (Orem, UT). She worked at the Orem location for six years; the theater recently moved and was renamed The Ruth and Nathan Hale Theater (Pleasant Grove, UT). Jess continues to work for the theater at an off-site location. During her 7+ years in the HCTO costume shop, she has been instrumental in much change, eventually carving a lot of space out of what was once a tiny cluttered corner of a laundry room and advocating to create and hire people in many new positions. Jess has also patterned and sewn thousands of costumes, learning new techniques all the time. Some of her favorite shows to build for include Million Dollar Quartet (2019), Thoroughly Modern Millie (2019), Little Women (2020), Bright Star (2022), Sister Act (2022), The Music Man (2023), The Hello Girls (2024), Seussical (2024), My Fair Lady (2024), Ragtime (2025), and Fiddler on the Roof (2026).
While Jess loves creating costumes of all sorts for all people, she does have a slight preference for menswear. If you are given a beautiful fabric, it’s really easy to turn that into a beautiful dress. But if you are given a humble wool, the beauty is dependent on the cut and the handling of the cloth, and Jess will happily take that challenge any day.
Besides all this work, Jess almost always has a personal project going on her knitting needles, in an embroidery hoop, or in her own sewing machine. She enjoys running, and has been a vegetarian for over twenty years. She loves cats – most especially her boy Knickerbocker.
