Cedar Hill Theatre Wins “Best Costume Design”

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characters from The Wiz
Photo courtesy Cedar Hill ISD

Best Costume Design For “The Wiz”

(CEDAR HILL, TEXAS) The Cedar Hill High School Theatre Department began creating elaborate costumes last year for the January 2021 production of “The Wiz.”

Approximately 15 to 20 CHHS Theatre Scholars worked on costume design and instruction, led by Class of 2021 Graduate Keelan Rossum and rising senior Celeste Garza.

Last Friday, the Theatre Department celebrated a Dallas Summer Musical Award for Best Costume Design, from a watch party at Class of 2021 Graduate Jacobie Thornton’s house.

Cedar Hill was declared the award winner, over seven other schools from the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. The program had been nominated for a record five awards this year.

“Costume design and construction has always been my forte, but we recently started it with “The Wiz”,” said Cedar Hill Theatre Director Bethany Kennedy, who just completed her eighth year at Cedar Hill and fifth as the Department Head.

Cedar Hill Theatre has now won three Dallas Summer Musical Awards since 2019. That year, they won “Best Featured Performer” and “Best Ensemble” for “Newsies.”

This year, they had to work extra hard to even have a show. While adhering to strict social distancing guidelines, the Theatre Department hosted “The Wiz” in late January. Cedar Hill Theatre Scholars received $1.92 million in scholarship offers.

“Theatre Arts did a tremendous job this year,” Cedar Hill Director of Fine Arts Derrick Walker said. “Fine Arts did more this year than we do in a normal year.”

Garza said receiving the award was very special for the Theatre Program.

“Mrs. Kennedy gave us the designs and ideas of what to do,” Garza said. “We designed the costumes for Emerald City and the Munchkins, and the Ensemble. It means a lot because it shows all of the hard work that we put in for the show.”

Kennedy said she was impressed with her scholars’ creativity.

“I would say ‘here’s a plain shirt, go turn it into something spectacular’,” Kennedy said. “They made the costumes from scratch, or they took something we had and turned into our vision of what it should be.”