Tuck Everlasting
Costume Designer • Arts Express • Summer 2019
• Production Photos • Research •
Tuck Everlasting tells the story of Winnie Foster, an 11 year old girl, who runs into a miraculous family called the Tucks, who are immortal. She learns about life and must decide if she, too wants to live forever. As the show follows an immortal family, it spans 175 years, from 1786 to 1961. Mae's challenge was to communicate these changes in period to the audience while also maintaining constancy of characters. Especially since time is a central theme of the show, it was important that the audience understand what is happening when. Mae also draped The Man in the Yellow Suit’s costume and Mae Tuck’s 1893 and 1786 dresses.
Costume Design: Mae Berg
Director: Nancy Davis Booth
Scenic Design: Mike Dunn
Lighting Design: Michael Sorrenson
Research
The 'Present' in Tuck Everlasting is 1893, the same year as the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which led to many other touring fairs (like the fair in the show). This led Mae to the University of Arizona Library's Special Collections, containing rare books on this subject. The Columbian Exposition was looking back at American history (celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' expedition) as well as looking forward at new technology. This mirrors the theme of time in the show, where Winnie is asked if she wants to live forever. Other periods of the show also call back to important events in American history. The Tucks drink from the spring in 1808 (lining up with the Westward Expansion) and Mae and Angus were married in the 1780's, when important steps were being taken in establishing the government. These milestones help contextualize the movement of time, as well as providing massively different aesthetics for a costume designer to communicate time to an audience.