The volunteer at the Stratford Costume and Prop Tour rattled off amazing statistics as she started the hour long session at the huge warehouse not far from the four theaters that make up North America’s largest repertoire theater.

For more about the Stratford Festival in Canada, click here. 

She explained that they have 850 human hair wigs, 10,000 pairs of shoes and more than 65,000 costumes.  

The warehouse is the size of two football fields or 6 soccer fields and at this point in the history of the Stratford Festival, it is almost full.  The festival started in 1953. They anticipate adding on to the building before too long.      

The tour was fantastic.  Our docent shared insider stories, pointed out how different props are created and in general made the 25 of us who signed up for a 10 am Saturday morning tour really glad we were there. 

Actually I would have loved more time to poke around.  Time to go down each isle and look at the costumes carefully organized by type, era, size and color.  I was told the vintage and most valuable ones were on an upper floor, but what I saw was truly fascinating.  

Racks and racks of hats.  Rows of period costumes.  How fun.   Kingly robes.  Scottish military uniforms.  Ruffled maid aprons.   Sparkly stuff.   

We also saw the props area where if you needed a trunk, you could choose from dozens.  Our guide said that before the shows start, the director and stage designers mark pieces they are interested in.  These pieces are taken to the stage for try outs before final choices are made.  

And if the stage designer needs something that isn’t in the massive prop and furniture collection, then, well the workshop folks will make it.  

At the end of the tour, we had fun trying on costumes and taking pictures of each other.  For just a minute I could imagine what it might be like to be on one of the massive stages, playing to thousands of folks during the season.  

For more information about the Stratford Festival, here’s a link.  

And here’s a link for the tours.  

If you like reading DesignDestinations.org do consider signing up on the right hand side of this page to receive an email update whenever there is a new post.  We don’t use your emails for anything else or send you any spam. Promise.