After earning two masters degrees from Miami University of Ohio and teaching at schools in Ohio and Indiana, Constance Gamiere arrived on the Monterey Peninsula in the fall of 1974 and settled in Pacific Grove. Less than a month later she was hired by Morgan Stock, at a salary of one hundred dollars a month as part-time costumer for Monterey Peninsula College. Twelve years later she became a full-time tenured instructor at the college, teaching three classes a semester and counseling the Creative Arts Division. She teaches Beginning Costuming, Makeup, and Drama Appreciation, providing students the opportunity to earn an associate's degree in costuming. In addition to teaching and being the guidance counselor for all the creative arts: drama, music, art, photography and drafting, Constance is responsible for costuming every play on MPC's main stage.

Constance Gamiere, in Rapunzel's castle from 1990 MPC's INTO THE WOODS now in her back yard

She costumed her first production, GODSPELL, in 1974, and, starting with this production, she has taken an academic approach, meticulously researching the periods for the costumes she creates. In the 1976 production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, she realistically dressed the people of the "shtetle" or poor Russian Village. The men wore boots because they were forced to move from village to village, and the roads over which they dragged their wagon loads of possessions were filled with mud. The married women wore head coverings to conceal the shaved heads required by their Orthodox beliefs. The very first MPC play ever presented on the main stage, WEST SIDE STORY, is reprised once a decade. When Constance costumed the Jets and the Sharks in the late seventies, she dressed them fiftie's style, but when she costumed them again in the nineties she had them wear contemporary clothing. She was the first costumer in the United States to present the characters in YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN in the actual cartoon-character costumes copyrighted by Charles Schultz.

Her limited budget (between four and five hundred dollars a show) requires her to save every costume, to creatively re-do, to borrow and to rely on donations of materials, as well as to put to work not only her costume classes but volunteers. She depends especially on Cathy Cranfield, a former student. When the theatre architect designed MPC's theatre, he expected the college to rent its costumes, so a proper costume shop does not exist. As the cost of renting costumes for most shows would be between two and six thousand dollars, a figure way beyond the costuming budget, all garments are made in-house. The lavish- looking outfits that clothed the cast of AMADEUS a decade ago came from six packing crates of fabrics donated by Betty Hunter, and the wigs were recycled Santa-Claus wigs donated by Dale Lefler. All the clothes for the recent production of DANCING AT LUGHNASA were made by students of the Drama 24, Beginning Costuming class, former as well as current class members. The dyeing of cloth is a frequent class activity, and, in this play, students dyed unbleached muslin to the appropriate earth colors. A dress worn by her Italian grandmother years before inspired Constance to create the dresses worn in the 1988 production of QUILTERS. As the play interweaves the stories of the women with the pieces of fabric that they put together, she used the same dress idea in multiple variations. Often she must create many costumes for one character, as in the 1990's production of EVITA, where the leading lady (not Madonna) required eighteen different costumes. The many beautiful dresses worn by Laura Akard in FUNNY GIRL were all made from scratch. These dresses, like the costumes from other shows, are put on display in the theatre lobby after the performance.

In the 1988 production of the Marx Brothers' comedy ANIMAL CRACKERS, Constance created a variety of "breakaway" costumes; these are costumes that come off the performers very quickly, either backstage or in full view of the audience. Using sleight of hand to maintain the suspension of disbelief, a woman's skirt, for example, is torn off and instantly transposed into a man's cape.

Costumes, as Constance points out, can be symbolic. Witness the 1992 production of M BUTTERFLY in which the main costume suggests the butterfly, an insect whose sex is difficult to determine but who lives a stage of its life only for sex. In this play our illusions about sexuality are challenged because the protagonist is really only in love with his own illusions about feminity.

More recent shows costumed by Constance Gamiere include NINE, CARNIVAL, SWEENEY TODD, BROKEN GLASS and a modern-dress version of Moliere's TARTUFFE. In March, she will costume Neil Simon's THE SUNSHINE BOYS.