Annie was the biggest production I’d designed up to that point, with a lot of interesting challenges particular to the production.  Because the Berkeley Playhouse specializes in exposing children to theater, they wanted to include as many orphans as they could realistically fit into the cast.  The director and I settled that the concept for the costumes would be to contrast individuality against uniformity.  The setting would be 1930’s Depression influenced, though not necessarily a strictly authentic period interpretation.  This decision gave me some much-needed flexibility within the design constraints and also allowed us to draw attention to how many aspects of the plot and characterizations are especially relevant to the socio-economic situation of 2011.Most costumes were thrifted and altered, though I built two of Annie’s major looks from scratch.