Behind every powerful moment on stage, there’s a fast-moving team working in the wings. On tour with Suffs, Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor Angelica Luz Fink helps keep intricate, historically inspired costumes performance-ready night after night. From training new dressers in every city to executing 10-second quick changes, her work is a blend of precision, problem-solving and backstage hustle that audiences rarely see but always feel.
You’re currently touring with SUFFS as an Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor. What does your Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor role involve? My role as Assistant Wardrobe Supervisor is to assist our wonderful Wardrobe Supervisor, Albert, in making sure all the costumes are show-ready and all of the quick changes happen. We work with a team of 8 dressers to fix repairs on the daily, steam costumes so they look nice on stage and help our actors do some pretty cool quick changes to help tell the story.
What are some of the unseen tasks or challenges that people might be surprised to learn about? Every time we go to a new city, Albert and I have to teach 8 new people how to dress the show. The craziest part is the quick changes. We have them choreographed a certain way with the actor, so in each city we can instruct the new dressers on how to do the change. For the most part, it goes well! One of our hardest quick changes is a 10-second quick change, where we have performers getting out of uniformed costumes into skirts and overcoats. This change can take a few tries to get exactly right.
What does a typical day on tour look like for you? From arriving at the theatre to the final curtain call? A normal day for me is arriving about 10 minutes before my call time. The crew is always called an hour and a half before a performance start time. I get settled in and say hi to my friends. Once we get to our actual call time, the Wardrobe Supervisor, Albert, hosts a quick meeting with all the local dressers. Basically, the meeting is a quick check-in, letting them know if any actor has called out and a swing will be on, if we are doing a Broadway Cares [fundraiser] or any other information they need to know. If someone is called out of the show, we have to take their costumes out of the gondola and put in the swing's costumes for that role. Once everyone is settled with everything they need, I check to see if anyone has brought costumes to be repaired or if any actors have given us notes to fix. When half an hour before showtime hits, all the actors are getting ready for the show. I try to be available in case someone needs or is missing anything. Once the show starts, the local dressers do all the hard work with the quick changes. I just make sure that everyone is where they need to be with all the correct costume pieces and to make sure nothing goes wrong in the change. There are always some fun shenanigans and dancing backstage to be had in addition to all the hard work that goes into putting on the show. Once the show ends, the dressers spray vodka on the costumes to deodorize them and collect the actors' laundry to be cleaned for another show. Albert and I make sure that everything is good, and then we pack up our stuff to go back to wherever is home for that city.
With a show like SUFFS, where the costumes are historical, how does the wardrobe team ensure each piece stays performance-ready throughout the tour? Paul Tazewell designed the beautiful costumes on this show [earning a Tony nomination for Best Costume Design]. Some of the pieces and fabrics chosen are very delicate or vintage, which is so cool! But that also means that they sometimes need extra love and care to last through this year-long tour. It just depends on what each garment needs. We’ve darned, patched, stitched and used little cheats to get around. Like instead of a full shirt, we use a dickie or just the collar to give an illusion of an actual shirt. For some shirts, we have duplicates that we switch out every couple of days so that we can spread the wear and tear out.