Kevin S. Foster II demonstrates how he makes one of the character Doralee’s wigs for the production of “9 to 5” in the costume department at Maine State Music Theatre. Foster works off measurements of the actor’s head and traces their hair line. He then pulls through just a few hairs at a time through the lace-front, creating the wig piece by piece. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

Kevin S. Foster II has spent weeks behind the scenes of the upcoming production of “9 to 5 The Musical” at Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick. His work will be onstage in every scene, enhancing all 24 cast members.

But he really hopes you don’t notice it at all.

“If we’re doing our job right, you’ll never know,” Foster said.

Foster is the wig and makeup designer this summer at Maine State Music Theatre. Most professional actors don’t style their own hair for day after day of performances. (Imagine setting pin curls every single day for weeks or even months, or dyeing your hair a different color for each new show.) They wear wigs. Foster has designed 40 for this workplace comedy inspired by the 1980 hit movie – his largest undertaking of the season.

It’s niche work (Foster is in an industry Facebook group with 1,000 members across the country, but not all are designers). It’s also hugely important to the magic of live theater. The goal is to make sure every fake head of hair looks like a real one, so the audience is never distracted from what’s happening on stage by a bad color job or a mustache that looks like it came with a last-minute Halloween costume.

“The audience is going to be the first ones to tell,” said Kenny Ingram, director and choreographer of “9 to 5 The Musical.” “They’re the people that are going to notice if something’s not right. That’s why you want to uphold the best look, from wigs to costumes to everything.”

In the theater’s production studio, Foster has set up shop next to sewing machines and racks of costumes. One table in his workspace is filled with more than a dozen wigs on blocks. Name tags pinned to each one identify their character. Most actors will wear two to three wigs during the musical’s two-hour run time. Some play multiple characters with different looks, while others play one character whose look changes during the show. (Margaret, for example, is a secretary who goes to rehab for alcoholism. She has two wigs: a pile of wild curls labeled “lush” and a neatly brushed style labeled “sober.”)

That’s just what makes this work interesting to Foster.

“I like telling a story with wigs,” he said. “It’s something super cool to show a character’s progression during a show. You learn so much about a person’s hair.”

Kevin Foster in his work area in the costume department at Maine State Music Theatre. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

FROM HOBBY TO CAREER

At 25, Foster has already been designing wigs for a decade. He grew up in Richmond, Virginia, helping his sister do her hair for dance competitions, and he was in high school when he watched a YouTube tutorial on wigs. He offered to make one for a friend who was a drag queen. Foster was just 17 when he designed the wigs for “9 to 5 The Musical” at a community theater in his hometown.

But he still thought wigs were just a hobby. He went to Virginia Tech to become an actor.

“My costume professor pulled me aside and was like, ‘You know, if you want to do this, this is a real job,’ ” Foster said.

Foster graduated with a degree in theater, but he spent those four years also learning about costume design with a focus on wigs. He got jobs at summer stock theaters and national tours, and soon, he had built a career as a freelance hair and wig designer. Foster travels around the country to make wigs for theaters, as well as impersonators, drag performers and cancer patients. His creations are his property, so he also rents out pieces from the collection of more than 500 in the spare room that doubles as his studio at home in Virginia.

In 2020, Foster saw theaters shut down indefinitely because of the COVID-19 pandemic and decided he would use the time to go to cosmetology school for more training. But he always planned to return to the stage (or, actually, the backstage).

“Working in a salon is something I do not want to do,” he said. “I just want to keep making pretend and playing dress-up with people.”

Wigs for actors in “9 to 5” in the costume department at Maine State Music Theatre. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer

His largest gig? Ninety-seven wigs for a production of “Cinderella” in 2021, in which every cast member wore four each. His favorite? Probably “Kinky Boots” last year at Maine State Music Theatre, which required both real-world looks and over-the-top drag. Or maybe “White Christmas,” set in the 1940s, his favorite hair era.

Foster connected with Maine State Music Theatre through a mentor who used to work there. The day after he graduated from his cosmetology program in 2021, he got on a plane to Portland with all his wigs for that summer’s production of “Jersey Boys.” (Foster often ships wigs to his destination ahead of time and travels with his supplies in a suitcase. Sometimes, he will pack wigs on their head-shaped blocks in a checked bag.)

“Somebody had a great time scanning the X-ray machine,” he said with a laugh.

Foster will have designed the wigs this summer for all four main stage productions and three Theatre for Young Audiences shows at Maine State Music Theatre. Ingram said this show is their fourth working together and spoke highly of his work. He said Foster “really likes to get into the director’s head” and talk about the vision for the show. As a Black director and choreographer, Ingram also said he appreciates that Foster, who is white, works hard to get the wigs right for Black cast members.

“I just really love that he pays attention to the correct hair texture to make everybody feel good onstage,” Ingram said.

STYLING ‘BACKWOODS BARBIE’

Foster has organized the tools of his trade in front of a stylist chair in the production studio. He has compartments with bobby pins and hair clips of different sizes, a bottle of hair spray, a printed-out schedule of the day’s fittings and two blonde wigs labeled “Doralee.” One has big, cascading curls. The other is still in progress, but Foster will style it in a French twist for the second act in what he calls her “executive look.” These will be worn by Carolyn Anne Miller, who will play the character embodied by Dolly Parton in the original movie.

Carolyn Anne Miller gets in character as Doralee Rhodes in “9 to 5 The Musical” at Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick. Photo courtesy of Jared Morneau Photography and Maine State Music Theatre

Miller, 30, had never seen the movie or the musical before she was cast, but she knew the iconic theme song. She lives in New York City and came to Brunswick earlier this summer for her role in their production of “Titanic.” During the break between her shows, she dug into research about the character. Miller learned that Parton wrote that song by tapping out a typewriter beat with her long acrylic fingernails.

Doralee Rhodes is not Dolly Parton, Miller said, but she sees elements of the country star in the character.

“She’s not putting on her pushup bra and curling her hair and doing the makeup for anybody but herself,” Miller said. “It makes her happy.”

That means getting the look right is essential to the character. Miller said her favorite song in the musical is “Backwoods Barbie.” Doralee sings about how her glamorous look often leads people to underestimate her: “Don’t judge me by the cover, cause I’m a real good book/ So read into it what you will, but see me as I am.”

“It’s just important to recognize people as a whole, always, and not necessarily just by appearance,” said Miller. “That’s probably the most powerful thing I hope people take away from her character.”

Foster started working on these wigs weeks before opening night. He first talks with Ingram about what is needed, and then he compiles photos of the cuts and colors he wants for each character. Parton has famously worn wigs for her entire career, and his inspiration board for Doralee includes shots of her from the 1980s. In the original movie, Doralee has a helmet of short curls that worked well for the close shots of a camera, but Foster said that style wouldn’t read the same onstage.

“If we were to do that same hairstyle, it would just look like a ball of hair,” he said. “When you’re designing for a show, it may be a normal, everyday hairstyle, but there has to be a heightened sense of theatricality to it.”

To begin the construction, Foster used cellophane and tape to make a mold of Miller’s head. He then adjusted a wig block to be an exact replica, and he used that form while he was building the wig so Miller did not have to sit for fitting after fitting. Foster makes wigs with both synthetic and real hair, and the techniques are slightly different for both. For example, synthetic hair will not hold up to real hair dye, so Foster used an alcohol pen to color the roots on Doralee’s head. Real hair can be washed with shampoo, but synthetic wigs are often cleaned with gentler dish soap. A “wig oven” dries them at a low temperature.

Some wigs for this show, such as the ones with feathered bangs, have a hard front. Doralee’s have a lace front, which allows Foster to mimic a natural hairline by threading individual hairs through tiny holes in a piece of lace. That process will take as much as six hours. If Foster makes the whole wig that way, it can take 40 to 60 hours. Sometimes, Foster adapts wigs from his large collection for a new show or actor, which might require two to three hours of cutting and shaping.

Foster cuts and colors and fits all the wigs, and then he leaves after opening night. Actors arrive 30 minutes before each show, per union rules, and technicians just pin their wigs in place. (An actor’s wig also is a good place to hide a microphone.) Sometimes he gets called with an emergency – a wig ripped, for example, and he needs to overnight a new one – but his work is usually done. At the end of a show, the theater ships the wigs back to him.

Does he ever wear his own creations? Foster said he likes to try them on to see, for example, what he looks like as a dirty blonde. But sometimes he forgets about what’s already there.

“I always forget to get my own hair cut,” he said with a laugh. “I’m like, I’ve done 50 people’s hair in the last month. Maybe I should go get my hair cut and styled.”