Local theater costumer and retired ISU drama professor reflects on decades-long career

POCATELLO – Jackie Czerepinski sits on an oversized sofa explaining how important costume is to a character’s identity.

The Pocatello woman is the artistic director of the Westside Players theater group and retired communications and drama professor at Idaho State University.

“When a character walks on stage, the audience knows who they are by the way they look. It’s the first way you can identify them; it’s a huge part of who they are,” Czerepinski tells EastIdahoNews.com.

Decades after beginning her theater career, Czerepinski reflects on how she got started. Her first production was a Christmas play in the second grade.

“They needed a short kid on stage, and I was one of the shortest kids in school,” she says, laughing.

She participated in theater throughout high school, becoming president of the drama club during her senior year.

She later received a bachelors and masters degree from ISU in drama and speech. Her PhD in drama came from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

It was during her time at ISU that Czerepinski got involved in costuming. She was initially hired to work under the university’s first resident drama costumer. One of Jackie’s projects involved sizing and cataloging all the clothing donations the drama department had received.

“We were trying on all this clothing, some of it going back to the 1890s,” Czerepinski recalls.

Their goal was to use as much of it as possible in the college’s productions. None of it was museum quality and it saved on costs.

Since joining the Westside Players in the 90s, Czerepinski has maintained this same use-and-reuse philosophy. The storage area backstage is filled with costumes, including shoes, accessories, and textile decorations. Ninety percent of the costumes have been altered, made or sewn by Czerepinski.

“After all the roles are cast, I like to pull about three costume options per character that I think the director will like,” she explains.

The costumes, she says, need to suit the person playing the character and work together with the other characters’ costumes and the stage scene.

Czerepinski also occasionally directs productions at the Westside Players, a task she admits is a big undertaking.

In her free time, Czerepinski likes to garden, participate in a book club, craft with her sister-in-law, and create fake food that looks like the real thing.

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