This interview was conducted by Derrin Hinch for the Australian TV special "Midday at the Phantom of the Opera, 26 July 1994


DH: Derrin Hinch
SS: Suzy Strout


DH: The breathtaking costumes that you are seeing up here today are not so much designed and stitched as engineered and built. They are both works of art and feats of construction. Even if they do someitmes almost fall off (ed. in reference to the discussion with Maree Johnson about her Elissa costume)- but with me now is the woman responsible for them, please welcome Suzy Strout.
Audience applause

DH: The costumes- you've got some of the costumes behind you- the costumes in the wardrobe are worth how much?

SS: Well it took us almost two million dollars to make them in the beginning. We set up a workshop, ran it for six months and built them from the ground up. Yes.

DH: And these costumes like the fabric of say the beutiful gown we saw Christine, Maree wearing, would that be used in all the productions around the world?

SS: Well her particular one we probably used most of the fabrics from Australia, but this blue one here this fabric is printed up in London and yes all the productions around the world use that particular one. So every Christine in every Phantom will have a blue dress similar to this, they're never identical because each of the makers are different.

DH: And the one over there we've got, that's Carlotta's isn't it?

SS: Yes, Carlotta's black and white dress, you'll see Helen soon in that. And um, most of those fabrics are again used around the world for Carlotta in that particular dress but depending on which country you are in is how they're used. And so, it's quite a spectacular one.

DH: Well right behind your head is the gruesome one, that's from Masquerade that's the Red Death of the Phantom.



SS: That's right. Where we saw Masquerade get up to, Phantom- when that ominous music started- Phantom was just about to appear in this Red Death at the top of the staircase and stalk down. Now this is a lovely costume because we put Rob in high heels, we give him a padded tummy so he can't see the stairs, we put a mask on him, a hat, a cloak, he carries a book-

DH: He carries a huge book as well in front of him.

SS: and he has to walk down, and sing and throw the book. Without falling. So, you know, there's lots of tests for Rob in these costumes.



DH: And that one cost thirty thousand dollars?

SS: Ah, fairly close to it, by the time we've done all the masks and the hats, and you know there's so much hand sewing involved in it becaus youc an't get a machine through a lot of this.

DH: ANd what about the maintainance, because I presume with all the fire and stuff- Rob was talkign about his son and liking all the fire stuff- I mean do you ever get the Pahntom's cape burned?

SS: Well this particular one when Rob does his disappearing act there's smoke and fire, and ah, yes there's been the odd singe mark on this cape and we've had to replace and patch it. I mean it's a risk with him in those.

DH: Tell me some of the statistics; I mean the thousands of shirts you iron, the number of shoes you buy, sorts of things like that.

SS: In all the performaces so far there's been about thirty thousand shirts ironed. So we have- DH: Take care of a Monday morning wouldn't it?

SS: We have three ladies that come in every day that iron. They come in and they start ironing all the shirts- they're washed an ironed. ANd we have fourteen dressers working on the show every night to help everybody get dressed into the right costumes and do the changes.

DH: You have to have replicas of virtually all these major costumes in case soemthing goes drastically wrong.

SS: That's right. Um Blue Dress we've probably got about five full sets of that. Carlotta; all of her outfits- she has six fairly stunning outfits- there'd be probably about six of those that we've got back there.

DH: Because Carlotta was a real diva at the Paris Opera house.

SS: Yes, that's right, and as such she would have had costumes made by her dressmaker. So they've got everything and the kitchen sink on them.


The discussion of costumes ended here before the show went backstage then presented Prima Donna.