If you travel to the east side of campus into the theater building, it can be easy to get lost with all the different doors leading down long dark hallways or into a wide-open theater. However, if you look hard enough and search for it in the far southeast corner of the building, you will come across the costume shop. This is where most of the costumes for Northwestern theater productions are made, and if you are lucky enough, you may just find Chloe Tschetter hard at work putting together costumes for an upcoming show.
Tschetter is a senior from Edgerton, Minnesota and can easily be described as an innovator. Instead of being content with a major provided by NW, Tschetter decided to put her goals first and create a student initiated major (SIM), Tschetter’s SIM is titled “applied design and entrepreneurship.”
Tschetter was quick to express joy when talking about her SIM. “As a student initiated major, my major includes all the things I am excited about and hope to continue to pursue. I was able to build in a semester of fashion classes abroad, which pair with art and entrepreneurship classes to give me a strong start to my eventual goal of owning my own creative business,”Tschetter said.
Tschetter has gotten to show the skills that she has learned from her time spent fulfilling her major and being a work-study in the theater costume shop. She has designed costumes for several NW theater productions including last spring’s production of “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov and the upcoming spring production of “Harvey” by Mary Chase. Tschetter recently brought the stunning costumes she designed from “The Cherry Orchard” to the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), a theater festival that recognizes collegiate designers, actors and other artists for their exceptional work.
It is easy to see Tschetter has an extreme passion and love for designing and taking her vision off a sketch book and onto actors. Actors who have worn her creations rave about the beautiful pieces that she has put together and often show appreciation for the detail and care that goes into Tschetter’s designs.
Since coming to NW Tschetter has grown close with several people on campus, but one staff member that has truly made an impact on her is costume studio supervisor Amber Huizenga, who she has worked with through several different theater productions.
“My favorite faculty member has definitely been Amber Huizenga, our costume shop manager, who has encouraged me and challenged me to grow as a seamstress, and also invests in me beyond that,” Tschetter said. Huizenga has been the NW theater’s costume studio supervisor since 2010 and has designed and assisted in numerous productions for both the college and the Orange City Tulip Festival. The skill and knowledge Huizenga has gained and now shares are something Tschetter is profoundly grateful for.
To further advance her set of skills and diversify her realm of knowledge, Tschetter chose to study abroad the fall semester of her junior year. Tschetter chose to study abroad in Italy due to its robust and historical resumé of beauty both in fashion, art and natural settings.
“Being abroad was an amazing cultural learning experience, but also a good chance for me to depend on people in new ways and experience community in an entirely different way.” Tschetter noted that some of her fondest memories from college were in Italy. One moment that stuck out for her was the birthday she spent abroad “My roommates in Florence took me to Venice on my birthday to celebrate and it was such a fun time!”
Tschetter’s work is truly the definition of art, and it is easy to see when talking to her that she is passionate about doing excellent work. Tschetter is an artist in everything that she does, and truly embodies the NW theater idea of Kingdom theater.
