Gems on stage: Rags become riches for this thrifty JoCo costume designer

Theatrical even at a young age, Sarah Jeter paraded around in vintage clothes and her grandmother’s formal dresses. It signaled what Jeter would become: a professional costume designer for stage plays and musicals.

Now 36, Jeter designs and creates costumes for performances at Olathe Civic Theatre Association and Johnson County’s The Barn Players.

It’s as if a young child’s dream came true.

Vida Bikales, president of the Barn Players board of directors, said she appreciates Jeter’s frugality.

“A community theater runs on a shoestring budget,” Bikales said. “Costumers need to be conscientious of their expenditure. Sarah creates the best-looking show on a shoestring.”

In Jeter’s fantasy world of “Peter and the Starcatcher,” staged at the Olathe Civic Theatre in 2021, a slim budget was not an obstacle. In a single mystical scene, a pod of 16 mermaids rose from an imaginary ocean with sea shells clinging to their bodices. Each wore wet wigs made from mop heads that were hand-dyed in six colors of the rainbow.

“It was so creative and so adorable,” said Jo Bledsoe-Collins, Olathe Civic Theatre Association president.

Dress shops, thrift stores, hardware outlets and closets are among the go-to sites where Jeter collects recyclable odds and ends. Old curtains are turned into garments. Bed sheets and pillow cases become a priest’s vestments.

Potato chip bags became headbands in one show and trash bags were transformed into shirts.

In Jeter’s hands, rags become riches — gems on stage.

Workshop space is a small, tidy room next to the kitchen for this designer.

“The sewing machine comes out of the closet,” Jeter said. “I have a draft desk with drawers. Everything has its place.”

Classical music soothes as Jeter, who has another day job, works weekends and evenings. Sometimes costuming fills a one-month period; sometimes two or three.

“My friends like to joke,” Jeter said. “They tell me when I’m working on designs, I’m in costume jail.”

By then, the script has been studied, characters identified, actors measured, and styles of an era have come alive in Jeter’s imagination. Renderings are drawn. A production schedule is inked on a spreadsheet so designs are stitched on time.

Costumes have an impact, Bledsoe-Collins said.

“As an actor, you put on the costume. It changes you as you walk or sit. It changes how you feel,” she said. “It puts you in the circumstance of the character. You become somebody.”

Jeter started her passion by earning a bachelor of fine arts degree from Northwest Missouri State University. Beyond design, performing on stage was a cornerstone of the curriculum. Jeter has since costumed several productions for local and regional theater, notably Olathe Civic Theatre Association and The Barn Players.

When it’s showtime, rarely does Jeter watch from the audience. Most likely, the drama happens in the wings, as Jeter helps an actor make a quick costume change or adjustment back stage.

“I am a performer as well,” Jeter said.

So it’s possibly a behind-the-scenes costume creator will appear on stage as a character — dressed in a design by Sarah Jeter.

For information on upcoming productions at a Johnson County Theatre, go to olathetheatre.org or thebarnplayers.org.