Andrea Bear instructs K’tren Wilson ’24 on proper carving techniques in the Puppets In Prague workshop on November 22, 2022 in Prague, Czech Republic. Wilson is a theater major who studied under Bear for four years in the costume shop. | Photo by Jake Paige ’23

You may not know her face, but if you’ve been to a Wabash Theater production in the last 16 years, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the work of costume designer Andrea Bear. 

Bear, who has spent the majority of her professional career bringing the Ball Theater stage to life with her creations, is headed to Pomona College in Claremont, California at the end of this semester. The road to sunny SoCal, however, has not always been straight.

While rehearsing for “Biloxi Blues,” military veteran and Director of the Writing Center Zachary Koppelmann worked with the students on proper Army procedure. While Koppelmann was on set, Bear jumped at the opportunity to get an experienced eye on her traditional World War II costume pieces, which she wanted to be as accurate as possible.

“Sometimes you have to make allowances because of budget,” Bear said. “So I [asked Koppelmann], ‘I know these things are wrong, but how many other people are going to notice them?’”

Pictured, Kevin Ballard- Munn ’22 and Rob Johansen perform in October 2019. | Photo courtesy of Communications and Marketing

“I grew up in a very small area. We didn’t have theater or anything,” Bear said. “I didn’t know you could get a job in theater or film or anything like that until I went to undergrad at Kansas State University.”

At college, Bear started working in the costume shop, drawing on the sewing lessons her grandmother taught her as a child. After working as a professional costume designer for years and earning her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Wayne State University, she finally landed at Wabash in 2008.

When I first came here, I wasn’t teaching: I was design and costume shop only,” Bear said, “And then that kind of evolved as we went along.”

In February 2010, Wabash produced “Terra Nova,” a play based on the true story of Norwegian Roald Amundsen (Spencer Elliott ’10, left) and Englishman Robert Falcon Scott (Cody Johnson ’10, right) in their race to the South Pole.

“Doing research for Terra Nova was really fun, because we don’t get a lot of shows with real historical characters,” Bear said. “I just jumped into this rab- bit hole of research and enjoyed learning about the actual science of the things that happened.” | Photo courtesy of Communications and Marketing

When the Theater Department realized they had a designer with an MFA at their disposal, they adapted the department to best incorporate her talents.

In Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Nick Bottom has his head transformed into that of a donkey, portrayed in Wabash’s October 2017 production by Will Maloney ’19 (left).

“She got it just right,” said Professor of Theater Michael Abbott ’85. “What you don’t want in that play is for it to seem like some actor running around with a bad ass head on. It should feel like somehow the actor becomes the ass. And that happened in that production.” | Photo courtesy of Communications and Marketing

“She’s totally transformed the way the costume shop works at Wabash,” said Professor of Theater and Department Chair Jim Cherry. “Before Andrea, there was no costume design class. Before Andrea, there was no Puppets In Prague. There was no magic and manipulation class. She’s added a lot to the curriculum and has, I think, proven yet another cliche about men wrong, which is that costume design is for women and that scenic design is for men.”

As an instructor, Bear’s classes are consistently popular, and her students have seen great success after graduation. One of her costume shop protégés, Paul Haesemeyer ’21, was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study knitting in Latvia and has been featured in Vogue Knitting magazine.

“I have never been in a collaborative experience where we’re talking about costumes but we’re also talking about puppets and how they might enhance the show or tell part of the story,” said Professor of Theater Heidi Winters Vogel.

When Winters Vogel directed “As You Like It” in October 2022, sheep and goat puppets were a crucial part of the performance.

“The sheep were so funny, because you would change one thing and then it wouldn’t work how it had been,” Bear said. “[One of them] was working perfectly, and then we put the sheep pelt on it and then it stopped working. So then you have to move the wires and everything… it’s all a learning process.”

Pictured: Nathan Ellenberger ’26. | Photo by Communications and Marketing

“Andrea helped me discover it is possible — even likely! — to succeed as an artist,” Haesemeyer said. “In the costume shop, she challenged my stitching and costuming abilities, encouraging me to try new techniques and eventually even help manage fellow workers. Andrea never doubted my ideas, no matter how large or impossible they might have seemed at the time”

“I like to see the trajectory of where they start to where they finish,” said Bear. “I like to give students a start-to-finish project. Going through every single step helps people process a little bit more, and it gives students a sense of completion. They can see the costume on stage and say, ‘I made that.’”

In her own way, Bear is a student herself. After already establishing a successful career, she made the decision to apply her skills to the art of puppetry.

“I’ve always been into mask-making and different things,” said Bear. “And I wanted to branch out, because I feel like mask-making and puppetry fall into that same world of creating an inanimate object that you breathe life into.”

“The armor that she made out of soda bottles for Macbeth was completely hilarious,” said Professor of Theater Jim Cherry. “It looked like metal and it weighed like six ounces. And she did a big presentation on it at the United States Institute for Theatre Technology conference.”

Joe Mount ’15 (right) dons his soda-bottle armor as Macbeth in a rehearsal for the Shakespeare classic in February 2014. | Photo by Corey Egler ’15

After looking around at different options, Bear and her life and creative partner Todd Handlogten found a puppet-carving workshop in Prague, Czech Republic. 

“We went, and we were working with these professional puppet carvers and directors,” Bear said. “It was a really amazing experience.”

They came back energized, and after working with the department to incorporate puppetry into a few productions, Bear drew up a proposal to take students on an immersion trip to participate in the Puppets In Prague workshop. Since, she has led two trips — in 2018 and 2022 — during which Wabash students work with professional puppet makers to design and carve their own traditional Czech marionettes.

Bear incorporated her knowledge of Czech-style marionettes by creating her style of puppets for the Czech play “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” produced at Wabash in February 2018.

“You don’t make marionettes like that,” said Professor of Theater Jim Cherry. “Nobody has marionettes that look like that. We basically invented how to make them, and then we used them.” | Photo by Communications and Marketing

By continuously developing her own skills, Bear helped push the department to new heights while at Wabash.

“As a collaborator, [she] always pushes me to do my best work,” said Professor of Theater Michael Abbott ’85. “When [I] know Andrea is going to step up her game and give you a big costume run, I feel like I have to give it all I’ve got. She’s energized the program over the years to do our best work.”

“All of the directors that I’ve worked with here have been very open to working with my ideas,” Bear said. “They’ve been very game to push the limits, and that’s one of the things that was always really fun about designing here.”

After Bear heads west, the costume shop will continue in operation under the direction of a new designer, but the impact that she had on the Wabash Theater Department and the legacy she leaves behind will long outlive her 16 years at the College.