Rob Pickens admits he gets a bit attached to the wigs.
That’s obvious during a late March afternoon, which finds him in the basement of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, surrounded by some of about 50 wigs from its recent production of Les Miserables.
Lovingly handling the wigs - mostly synthetic, with touches of human hair - worn by such principal characters as Fantine, Madame Thenardier, Cosette and Jean Valjean, he refers to the wigs by the characters’ names and human pronouns.
This is “just because … they have so much character to them,” Pickens says. “You have to get into character a little bit when you’re styling the wigs. Like how Madame Thenardier would put up her hair in her dingy mirror every morning - pop some dead flowers in it,” and go on about her day.
“It’s amazing the transformation power wigs have,” Pickens says. One of his favorite moments in Les Miserables comes when Fantine - the unmarried, abandoned young mother who falls on hard times and sells her hair for money - goes from a wig featuring long, beautiful blond ringlets to a short, crude razor-cut wig.
“It’s just breathtaking, the difference, even for me … at the effect a wig does have on [the actors],” he says. “I still get that little excitement and thrill when I put it on their head and it looks the way I wanted it to.”
That response could easily be credited to someone who’s seen hundreds of productions and whose own hair might be gray. But Pickens’ thick dark hair and boyish face give him away. At only 18, he’s already proved his skills as a theater production designer and wig-maker, not to mention online entrepreneur who rents wigs to high schools and college theater departments throughout the country.
The Rep’s 2008 production of Les Miserables “was actually one of the first shows I saw here,” says Pickens, who was 12 at the time.
“It’s been a thrill getting to do a show with the same creative team that I got to see way back when.”
A senior at Central Arkansas Christian Schools, Pickens, of Little Rock, grew up in a home that encouraged creativity and has been involved in theater since around the age of 8. He started at the Arkansas Arts Center, “just piddling around with the idea of the acting side of it and all that, and found myself going more towards the technical side,” he says. “I just started learning as much as I could about the theatrical process, what all goes into making a show.”
When he discovered in his research that actors in a production wear lace-front wigs, “I was dumbfounded. I had no idea,” Pickens continues. He wanted to know how these wigs looked so authentic. A series of books on wig-making and wig styling had just been released. Pickens went online and picked up a few of the books … along with some cheap wig lace, some hair and a knotting needle. He read one of the books and just “started ventilating hair into the lace and seeing where I could go,” he says, referring to the process by which hair is tied onto the lace fabric of a handmade wig using a small hook.
Gradually, he taught himself the art of wig-making. After buying and making replicas of wigs used in the Broadway production of Hairspray created by noted hair and wig designer Paul Huntley, Pickens hung out his wig-rental business shingle at robpickens.com.
REACHING FOR HIS STAR
Hannah M. Sawyer, Pickens’ former drama teacher, encouraged him to send an email to Rafael Castanera, production manager and costume designer for the Rep, to see if there might be a place backstage for him. Pickens sent that email, along with a Dropbox link to his wig work.
“I got a response the very next morning and was in his office [the following] Monday being interviewed,” Pickens says. “And Tuesday or Wednesday, I started in the shop as the costume apprentice, then a few weeks later I got asked to do Le Miz wigs.”
Castanera describes Pickens as “truly amazing. I am in awe,” he says. “Eighteen years old and so well put together. He is just brilliant.”
He remembers getting that emailed meeting request. “It was like, ‘Hi, I’m a local wig designer … I go to high school.’ [I thought,] ‘Oh come on, give me a break.’” But then the two met and Castanera saw the photos.
Castanera says Pickens “is kind of like a sponge” - taking advice and constructive criticism well and using both to progress.
Pickens also did wig design for the Rep’s December-January world premiere of the musical Because of Winn Dixie, and the theater’s January-February run of Clybourne Park.
TRICKS OF THE TRADE
How do these wigs look so much like real hair?
Pickens shows one of the wigs used in Les Miserables. “This fine piece of lace is sewn onto a premade commercial cap,” he says. Using the needle, “you tie each hair in, one strand at a time, around the hairline to create the illusion that it’s growing out of their forehead. [Because of] the stage and their makeup, you will not see the lace that’s on the wig.”
Lace-front wigs have been around a long time - “they’ve just been so expensive.” The ones that are available commercially are not like the ones he has made and adapted for theater, Pickens says. Commercial lace-fronts have plastic lace that is not like the fine French lace that will better blend in with the skin. Hairlines on those wigs are straight and do not look natural.
To achieve a natural look for featured characters in Les Miserables, Pickens obtained photos of the actors, traced their hairlines and designed the wigs. When the actors arrived, they tried them on. “I got lucky and all of them fit,” he says.
This March morning, Pickens shows off a wig that was redone for the shady Madame Thenardier, who with her husband keeps and mistreats lead character Cosette as a child. It was a commercial, machine-made wig onto which a piece of lace was sewn. Pickens bought some hair extensions on a track, sewed it on top of the lace, and ventilated a hairline on the front.
He shows the rest of the wigs for “Madame T,” as he calls her. She has three - the first, for her early days; a gray wig that “shows her decline over the years as they lose the tavern as their lifestyle starts to go downhill.” Then there’s the bright red, elaborate, over-the-top and deliberately unnatural wig Madame T wears to crash the wedding of Cosette and Marius. Pickens says he and Castanera had numerous discussions about every character. “His concept for the final wigs for the Thenardiers was that they both, by that point, pretty much have no hair of their own left,” Pickens says. “So they went out and probably stole some wigs to wear. Their progression is so fun throughout the show.”
To the wigs for ensemble actresses, he added better quality lace on the fronts and did about an inch of ventilation. He added curls around the fronts to camouflage the noncustomized look.
It takes about 10 hours to fashion a lace-front wig by hand, Pickens says. School work versus wig-making time has been a balancing act. Full lace wigs, custom-made to fit an individual head, take anywhere from 50 to 60 hours depending on the density of the cap that’s required.
A BRAIN TO PICK
Pickens has had some mentoring from a noted figure in theater makeup and wig-making: Robert Bouvard, who did the wigs for the original Les Miserables national tour. Doug Webster, who played Jean Valjean in the just-ended Rep production, put Pickens in touch with Bouvard.
“I started having trouble with Doug’s wigs flipping out in the side,” Pickens says. “He looked like a little Frenchwoman running around the stage. I sent [Bouvard] a message, on Facebook of all places, and said ‘Help me; here’s some pictures.’” Bouvard helped Pickens revamp the Les Miserables wig designs.
Bouvard, now retired and speaking from his Rohnert Park, Calif., home, says he was happy to lend a hand. Pickens, he marvels, “makes absolutely beautiful wigs.”
“I’d seen many different interpretations [of Les Miserables wigs] over the years of the wigs, and this is the first one I’d seen that is really worth its salt. This young man is really talented,” Bouvard says, noting that he, like Pickens, was self-taught.
Bouvard, who also was a hairstylist to celebrities such as The Munsters’ Yvonne De Carlo, sees big things ahead for Pickens, who he says “listens to everything. He has a passion for the business and with those two elements, that’s all it takes” to make it.
The wigs are now being shipped to Phoenix, the next stop for the production. Pickens is sending along what he calls a wig “bible” - a detailed book of the designs and how to execute and maintain them.
Where will he go from here? Pickens plans to study theater at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in the fall, where Marianne Custer, costume designer for Because of Winn Dixie, heads the costume design department. He’s taking the rental business with him and is open to apprenticing during the summers and between semesters.
“I really am open for any opportunities to come my way,” he says. “I’m excited to see where all of this is going to go because I do feel this is only the beginning.”
Family, Pages 34 on 04/09/2014