Preparing for her role as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables, Alyia Blay casts an appreciative eye over her dress with puffy sleeves, made by Helena Bozzetto, who has risen to multiple challenges to prepare for Lieder Theatre productions. Photo: John Thistleton.
In a note about his latest play, Anne of Green Gables, Lieder Theatre Company’s artistic director Blake Selmes says the protagonist’s ability to see beauty in the mundane and dream beyond her circumstances is a love letter to the power of creativity.
He could well have been writing about one of his behind-the-scenes costume team, Helena Bozzetto, too.
Since coming from Sydney with her husband Robert seven years ago, Helena has stepped forward after a tree change that would have rattled lesser lights, and ever since has been costuming talented Goulburn amateur actors.
Hard-working and nimble-fingered, and with her mother Dawn’s aptitude for stitching and an old sewing box, Helena has re-created the costumes of many of the world’s stage and storybooks’ best-known characters, with a sharp eye for detail and strong work ethic.
Having made the all-important orphan outfit to evoke Anne Shirley arriving at the railway station and being picked up by Matthew Cuthbert, Helena turned her attention to another challenge.
“For this performance, the challenge was Anne wants a dress with puffy sleeves,” she said. “All the girls have puffy sleeves except Anne because she is being raised by two very sensible people, and you cannot find a puffy-sleeve dress. So on Thursday I made a puffy-sleeve dress,” she added with a satisfied laugh.
Admitting she does not pattern-make properly, she is confident in making things up as she goes along, and the results – from Shakespearean neck ruffs for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) to tabards for the Three Musketeers and specific costumes for Bungonia author Annie Bilton’s The Interesting Mrs Abell – all showcase her talent and dedication. Some pieces require countless hours of work.
“We are blessed at the Lieder to have a really large costume department,” Helena said. “Upstairs [at the theatre], I refer to it as our costume loft and it is jam-packed full of things, so we are fortunate to be able to pull a lot of period pieces, particularly, that we can use and if we are lucky they’ll fit and they’re perfect.”
For Anne of Green Gables, which opens on Friday, 29 November, with a fundraiser for Goulburn CWA, Helena has made costumes for Anne’s four girl friends as well.
“For that I have purchased things and then modified them,” she said. “For some of the ladies, I could not find shirts I liked, so I bought men’s shirts and modified those – you will see me in the op shops a lot.”
She has also helped the Rocky Hill Musical Theatre Company stage Mary Poppins, a huge production. She had to custom-make Mary Poppins’ blue suit knowing everyone would be acutely aware of all the detail.
With an inherent love of live performance, Helena volunteered at the Lieder when she first arrived in the district. When former Lieder Theatre artistic director Chrisjohn Hancock asked whether she wanted to go on stage, she declined and revealed she could sew. She has been busy ever since, alongside stalwarts Pauline Mullen and Christine Bentley.
“I am more of a sewer,” she said. ”Pauline has encyclopedic knowledge, which is brilliant. We are trying to store her brain in some way we can use it.”
Enjoying having a reason to create things, working behind the scenes has its rewards too.
“It’s lovely to hear people after seeing a play and talking about what they liked and they might say, ‘Oh, the costumes were amazing’,” Helena said.
Tired of long hours in Sydney, Robert, a software and infrastructure architect, turned to Towrang’s fresh air for a change and the couple now get their fingers dirty in cottage and veggie gardens.
Years ago, Helena landed a job at Radio 2GB, first as secretary for John Tingle, then as program coordinator and then producer.
“It was news talk, all current affairs; we didn’t play any music, it was talkback radio,” she said.
She lined up politicians and celebrities including The Muppets creator Jim Henson and Ronnie Corbett, notching up a decade and leaving with fond, lifelong memories of Tingle.
“He was lovely, a real sweetheart, very kind, very generous with his time and knowledge,” she said. “I remember when I first started, I had never flown and he and his wife for my birthday sent me down to Melbourne for lunch and brought me back because I had never been on a plane.”
Helena later worked in the building industry and is now constructing an entirely different pastime, one tailor-made for a creative woman.
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