ACT puts costume rental shop in mothballs
Hats off to the end of an era. After 31 years, the American Conservatory Theater costume rental shop is closing while the theater company tries to get through the the coronavirus pandemic, which has continued to delay any inperson productions this year. The two floors of costumes at the Market Street shop, which includes pieces that date back to the company’s founding by William Ball in 1965, are currently being sorted and put into storage, ACT Executive Director Jennifer Bielstein told The Chronicle. Some costumes will be housed at the company’s Geary Theater; others will go into storage at a rented facility in San Leandro.
There are no plans for any costume sales.
“Real estate in San Francisco is challenging, and it’s especially challenging for nonprofit arts organizations,” Bielstein said. “Those challenges were exacerbated by COVID. Envisioning the long game, postCOVID for ACT, we had to make hard decisions.”
ACT currently rents three floors at 1117 Market St. — two for the costume rental shop and the Costume Shop performance space, a third for mainstage costume production. The company plans to vacate the space by Aug. 31 and is giving up its longtime studio and office spaces at 30 Grant Ave., which are also rented.
The rental business and mainstage costume department are separate within the organization; costuming for ACT productions will not be affected.
The costume rental shop was founded in 1989 after the Loma Prieta earthquake as a way to generate revenue for ACT following damage to the Geary Theater. The business was previously in the China Basin neighborhood before moving to its present location near the ACT Strand Theater in 1998.
Longtime employees Callie Floor, the shop’s rentals manager, and inventory manager Jef Valentine have been helping facilitate the costumes’ move. Both of their fulltime positions have been eliminated by the shop’s permanent closure.
Overall, ACT has reduced its staff by 77% this season in response to closures caused by COVID19, Bielstein said. The pandemic effectively ended the company’s 2020 season in March.
“It was a bustling business,” said Valentine of the shop, which has been shuttered since shelterinplace orders went into effect in March. “We felt like the diner waitress equivalent of costumers. We never closed other than federal holidays, not even for an inventory week. Even though we were only open by appointment, it was a constant stream of helping people who needed all kinds of costumes for all kinds of reasons.”
In addition to the thriving rental business that specialized in costuming theatrical productions in the Bay Area and nationally, Valentine said the shop had steady clientele looking for costumes for periodspecific events like the annual San Francisco Edwardian Ball. And with the popularity of shows like “Mad Men,” “Downton Abbey” and “Game of Thrones,” ACT’s rental business was a onestop shop where you could get an entire look, including accessories, for $175.
In recent years, the business’ gross profits ranged from $150,000 to $200,000 annually, according to ACT.
In Valentine’s 15 years with the costume shop, he said he’s handled many costumes worn by wellknown actors that performed at ACT — including Annette Bening, Harry Hamlin and BD Wong — and relished sharing details about the costumes’ histories with clients.
“Each and every garment represents a particular production and designer involved,” Valentine said. “You can see the evolution of costume design. You see evolution of materials used.
Will Wright, the director of operations and production at the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, called the move heartbreaking.
“We utilize the shop for every event we do,” Wright said. “I honestly don’t know what we will do instead.”
Susan Stauter, the Conservatory director at ACT during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, called the costume collection a “sacred archive” that was the “jewelry box” of the company. The collection includes many elaborate, historic recreations that differed from what many companies were then using in productions.
“When ACT started, Bill Ball wanted to bring the classics back to life,” Stauter said. “There were lots of ruffles and flourishes on those costumes. In those days, the Magic Theater wore Tshirts that said ‘No Dead Playwrights,’ but ACT was doing classics and emerging classics. The costumes were so important to establishing the tone of the play.”
Carey Perloff, ACT’s artistic director from 1992 to 2018, said that the Conservatory program could not have run without the costume collection and the shop’s staff. “We didn’t have to build separate costumes when we did a period play in the MFA program,” Perloff said. “Costumes were used again and again.”
The costume rental shop was also a great place to network. It was where Perloff said she
made connections with people who worked in smaller Bay Area theater companies because so many companies used the resource.
Although the rental shop might reopen in a new incarnation, with so much uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus, that possibility is a long way off. People simply are not producing shows or throwing costume parties right now, meaning that there’s no market for the business, Bielstein said.
Instead, ACT’s focus is on the financial health of the theater company, which is planning a mix of virtual and, tentatively, inperson productions for 2021.
“We’ve viewed the rentals as a way we support and are part of the ecosystem in the Bay Area arts community,” Bielstein said. “We’re really sad to be moving out of these places, but at the same time, they are decisions we need to make to ensure we can deliver on our mission in the future.”