At the end of the first-floor hallway on the right side in the theatre arts wing of the Doudna Fine Arts Center, there is a room filled with clothes, costumes and props.

The people who work in this room make, alternate and create the costumes and some of the props seen on stage through the different productions over the semester.

The costume shop is a series of room filled with costumes, fabrics, boxes of pins and threads.

The director of the Costume Shop is Karen Eisenhour, a theatre arts professor.

She said her and the students who work in the shop build costumes from scratch, reuse previous costumes or make alterations.

Eisenhour said the process of creating the costumes starts with the scripts for the production.

She said she will read it and take notes about the time, place and characteristic of the characters.

“My basic checklist is what do they say about themselves, what do others say about them and get a really good sense of who they are as individuals,” Eisenhour said.

She said after the notes, the design team meets to build the wardrobe.

Eisenhour does not do the designs herself because the costumes would come out differently.

“We have to create an unified world on stage so that it’ll be believable to the audience,” Eisenhour said. “If I went and did something one way and the other designers went another way, it wouldn’t look like a unit.”

The team develops a concept and then starts the process of making the costumes for the show.

They will see what they have in the vault that they use and make what other costumes they need.

Grace Munoz, a sophomore theatre arts major, said she likes seeing the work she did and see it on stage in the show.

“I like to create things, especially things I’ll get to see later,” Munoz said. “I like how we get to take nothing most of the time and create a whole new costume for a specific character.”

Eisenhour said they are currently making costumes for the performance of “A Christmas Carol.”

“There are 26-28 people in there, and each of them has at least one costume,” she said. “So when you start adding up numbers, it starts to be a lot.”

On top of creating the basic costumes for the productions, the people in the shop try to build in little surprises for the audience to enjoy.

“Our Christmas future is going to have a really nice surprise to him, so people will have to come and see,” Eisenhour said.

Gianni Adorno, a senior theatre arts major, said he can express his creativity in the shop.

“It’s my passion, it’s something that I’m good at and I’m not limited with my creativity when I work here,” Adorno said. “It keeps me busy and keeps me the hard working person that I am.”

Eisenhour said the Costume Shop is not just a place where they build the costumes audience see on stage.

She said there are a lot of different types of students in the shop, some who have sewn for a while and other who have never done it before.

“It’s not just working the shop to build the show, though we have to have the done, it’s also how can we teach as we go,” Eisenhour said.

Sophia Welsh, a sophomore communication disorders and sciences major, said she like the shop because she is not a theatre major.

“I get to see the behind the scenes of all the plays before they come out, and even though I work here, it’s still a learning experience,” Welsh said.

Eisenhour said she is a teacher, a designer and a seamstress.

“It’s a revolving door and I wear many hats at once,” Eisenhour said. “Sometimes my worlds stay very separate and sometimes they create an interesting colleague of who I am all at once.”

She said the shop does not often get recognized, but that is OK.

She added that the costumes are supposed to help transform the characters and give an element to the show, not take it over.

“If I do my job correctly, the audience doesn’t know I’ve done my job,” Eisenhour said. “Often times if you are excluded from a review, though it is nice to be acknowledged and mentions, it means you’ve done your job well, because you haven’t done anything to take over the show.”

Welsh said she has made so many friends in the shop.

“Everyone is super friendly here, it’s a little family,” Welsh said.

Eisenhour said the shop is there for anyone.

“This is our world,” Eisenhour said.

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.