When you go to Fresno City College’s production, “Living Out”, which opens on March 7, the actors will already have their lines memorized, outfits fitted, and their faces painted by the time you arrive. It takes months and many helping hands to get the ball rolling in order to have everything ready for a successful run.

At the very beginning of producing “Living Out”, Director Chuck Erven held meetings with the costume designer, Lighting designer, and set designer to lay out how his vision of the play. Through the long weeks of shaping the play, Erven must work closely with the costume, lighting, and set designers to make his vision a reality.

Costume Designer, Debra Shapazian, starts by sketching out renderings for the costumes which she shows to Erven for his approval. After Erven has made the changes he wants, Shapazian and the Costume design teacher, Dawn Martinez, start working on the outfits.

This reporter attended one of the costume design classes in the back of the theatre. The classroom looks like it could be a sweat shop with numerous sewing machines, and reams of cloths of various colors, hung all over the room. Actors in the play do not actually make the outfits themselves.

“If I know that one of the students is capable of making a certain article of clothing, I will assign it to her, but for the most part, students are here to learn and help out,” said teacher Dawn Martinez.

Her class teaches the students how to sew, and what materials and colors fit best with each other. On Valentine’s Day, Martinez placed a bowl of multi-colored, heart shaped candies in the middle of a table and asked each student to pick three candies of different colors and sketch a costume using the colors.

The students kept up, taking it all in stride, but this reporter wondered if the task is as easy as they made it look.

“I love this class; it’s like a dream job. I enjoy helping out with the play because you get to be behind the scenes and see everything that goes on,” said Delaney Matson, a student enrolled in the class.

When all of the costumes are made, the lighting and costume designer have to look at the clothing under a stage light set up in the make-up room. What looks like an old dentist’s chair takes center stage. It is the spot where the two designers place the already completed costumes to determine what type of lights to shine on them.

A lay person may never know the amount of time and attention that go into selecting the right lights at the right moments. It doesn’t seem like different shades of light could make costumes look that much different, but in actuality, the difference is huge. Lighting has a lot to do with how the costumes look on stage. Under different lights, certain reds and greens can turn black.

It’s not just the costumes that change under certain lights, the make-up the actors wear changes as well. In the make-up room, there are mirrors and lights all around that would put any teenage girl’s bathroom to shame.

Each mirror has about four huge bulbs on each side to show what the make-up will look like on stage.

Shapazian teaches a class on theatre make-up, a perfect class for theatre majors. Around the room, there are pictures of faces with different designs that are there to inspire the students in the class. Some of the pictures are of actual students that have certain make-up on to make them look like they are eighty years old, or some wild animal.

As rehearsals progress, Shapazian creates a design for each of the actors and teaches them how to put on their make-up. The make-up they use isn’t the kind you can pick up at a Long’s; it is a certain kind of theatre make-up called Ben Nye, which is a tad thicker and stays on longer. The actors master the art of applying their own makeup and must take everything into consideration, particularly the lighting and the costumes.

Getting everything ready, inside and out, takes a long time and is very stressful. It is as much a team effort to get a play ready as it is for a football team preparing for a new season. The play still has a way to go before its opening night, but it takes all hands on deck working side by side to make sure that it is a great success.