Costume Construction and Costume Crafts are offered to develop the technical skills of each student. Academic credit and peer evaluation are achieved for realized production designs through Advanced Projects in Design. Continued development of a design portfolio is at the core of the Costume Design program. Each semester the student is enrolled in MFA Portfolio and receives credit for this portfolio development. In addition to the specific costume course work offered in our curriculum, Costume Design students explore additional graduate course work that will aid in their development as designers and theatre practitioners.
Many students enroll in scene painting studies.
A variety of theatre history, theory and criticism courses are also available. Exploration of course work outside the Department many times includes art course work in textiles, water color, jewelry making, and figure drawing. Costume students have also found benefit in taking draping, flat-patterning, and tailoring course work from the Home Economics Department. Illinois State University gives design students many opportunities to realize their designs. More than half of the total season of fully-mounted productions are designed by student costume designers.