Did you know there are multiple kinds of theatre blood? Blood capsules you can put in your mouth, powder blood you activate with water, thin liquid for spraying, old-looking blood for old wounds, blood that looks like you’ve been bleeding for hours, blood you can safely put in your eye—we could go on. Theatre Garage has a whole display case filled with options, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Year round, you can find high-quality blood, professional makeup, prosthetics, wigs, facial hair, and countless costumes and accessories to rent or buy. Pirates, zombies, mascots, royalty, pop culture figures—it’s a smorgasbord of new identities and cool ideas at Theatre Garage.
Owner Christy Greenwood is well immersed in the Edmonton arts scene, and not only as a provider of professional-grade goods. Before opening Theatre Garage in 2009, she worked as a wardrobe technician, with gigs at prominent institutions like the Citadel Theatre and Edmonton Opera. “It’s literally all I know,” says Christy. “I was just in Calgary working on a new Netflix series, I got to do Hamilton, I did the JUNOs.” Specifically, she was JUNOs host Simi Liu’s tailor this past March. Cue mind explosion for the notoriety and reach of this talented local technician.
When we caught up with her, she was in the middle of costuming for Fort Edmonton Park’s annual Halloween event, DARK. The haunted festival features creepy roaming characters and twisted themed experiences, all which need elaborate costumes for the actors. “It’s one of my favourite gigs I’ve ever had,” says Christy. “We get to build all this awesome stuff, and then we tear it apart and soak it in blood.”
This Halloween, Christy anticipates the top costumes will be Barbie, Barbie drag, Barbie zombies, fungi zombies from The Last of Us, and, as always, twists on the classic monsters. “My customers are very creative. I have a very different customer base than the pop-up Halloween stores,” she says.
Even aside from these hired gigs, the Theatre Garage sewing lab is always busy. In fact, many of the products they sell, they manufacture in-house, while others are sourced locally. Don’t be shy about bringing in your projects and questions! As many of the staff are there in between productions, the in-store expertise can range from makeup artists to wardrobe techs, and are the best people on the case.
And as with any artistic endeavour, there’s so much more than what you see. “Our mission from day one was working with the LGBTQ community,” says Christy. “For folks to come in and be their authentic self in the public for the first time.” If you’re looking to try makeup, wigs, or facial hair for the first time, the staff will happily get you sorted and even talk you through the application. At Theatre Garage, you can be whoever you want to be.
