Jeanna Hurd-Parham is the wig designer for UCSC Opera, which performs Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan tutte’ this weekend. Photo by Georgia Perry.
Jeanna Hurd-Parham’s proudest moments on the job are the times when nobody has noticed her work. As the official wig designer for the UCSC Opera, as well as the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) and Opera Parallele in San Francisco, her goal is to seem invisible.
“I love it when I do a show, and nobody knows that there are wigs on stage. That means I’ve done a good job,” she says. “You should never notice wigs. I got mentioned in a review once for my ‘outrageous hair and makeup.’ And I was so devastated, because I didn’t consider it outrageous. But the characters were so over the top that if their hair hadn’t have been over the top, it wouldn’t have matched what they were doing on stage.”
For UCSC’s production of Cosi fan tutte, opening this Thursday and running through Sunday, Hurd-Parham is renting the theater wigs from her private collection and providing wig styling and makeup services. While the show, which features music by Mozart, was first performed in 1790, director Brian Staufenbiel decided to set his version in 1920s France during the Tour de France.
“I love bicycles. I have a crazy imagination that takes me many different places. I love France in general and it’s a really sort of a fascinating period,” Staufenbiel says. “We’re going to have period costumes and cool bikes that look like they’re from the ’20s. People are going to be riding bikes across the stage. That is the plan.”
In her studio at the ACT, Hurd-Parham pulls out a wig of long brown hair she is planning on using in Cosi for a 1920s upper-class lady. For now, it is just in a simple braid, but she will style it “probably a low chignon with some marcel waves down the side, with some soft curls.”
There are a few different options for acquiring wigs. The cheapest and most universal way is to buy a premade wig, add a piece of lace to the front of it and sew in extra hair to match the actor’s hairline. That process is called ventilating, and is done with a single needle, taking hours. There are also better quality, machine-sewn wigs out there, though they cost several hundred dollars more. Or Hurd-Parham can create a custom wig from scratch, ventilating the entire thing herself. This process takes between 40 and 60 hours.
She holds up another wig for Cosi, short and black, and explains that she prefers to work with Indian hair, rather than the standard Chinese hair, because it is a better quality. “They have to process the Chinese hair more, because the shaft is thicker. It’s actually thicker, and it’s harder to bend. To get it into a wig like this—and you can see how shiny it is—they have to really, really process it. So it tends to make the hair a little mushy, a little not-so-great-feeling. And very, very shiny. Because then they have to coat the hair. Indian quality hair is a little bit more flexible, not quite as coarse and thick.”
During the course of a single season at ACT Hurd-Parham will typically use around 65 wigs.
“You would be amazed how many people wear wigs. It’s a ton. It’s a ton,” she says, even in film. “Big name people too. Well, Samuel L. Jackson is known for his wigs. He’s very bald. Ted Danson has been wearing toupees and wigs since the 80s. You’ve got Beyoncé. She always wears a wig, that’s never her own hair. She has her own line of wigs. You see these close-ups, and you think that’s her own hair. It’s because they put a special type of hair into the front, so they think it’s her own hair. And then they glue it down with a specific glue. So they do tricks, so that anytime you see them you think that’s just them. No. In reality, that’s a wig.”
Is it comfortable to wear a wig?
“Some people find it itchy. I can’t stand it. I wouldn’t be able to wear one,” she says, looking over at a soft, wavy wig she has recently created. “Pin-curls are obnoxious.”
Cosi fan tutte will be performed at UCSC Recital Hall in Santa Cruz from Thurs-Sat, May 30-June 1, 7:30pm; Sun June 2, 2pm.
