"Costume Shop Manager"

Job Description

Department: Performance, Theater, and Dance - Staff

Pay Rate Type: Hourly

Employee Type:

Job Summary: The Department of Performance, Theater, and Dance invites applications for 9-month, 15 hours/week Costume Shop Manager to collaborate with a committed team of artists and educators. The Costume Shop Manager collaborates with faculty, staff, and visiting artists and works closely with students. Candidates should be comfortable with instruction and management of college students at varied skill levels. Candidates must be committed to fostering a welcoming environment and be willing to engage in critical analysis of accepted practices within the field in order to determine how best to serve our educational mission. Our department holds the following fundamental values; justice, community, reciprocity, collaboration, and leadership.

Essential Functions

• Oversees the use of the costume shop and costume storage during the academic year
• Attends and participates in department retreats, select department meetings and departmental production meetings
• Contributes to the comprehensive learning experience for Colby students in curricular productions and work-study positions through instruction and supervision in all areas of costume construction, organization, and maintenance
• Facilitates costume construction for Performance, Theater, and Dance faculty-led productions and provides guidance for all other departmental productions including student capstone projects. This includes purchasing items; producing patterns from renderings, sketches, and verbal instructions; and costume construction, assembly, alterations and fittings with necessary painting, dying, and distressing
• Manages the Costume Shop budget, tracking individual production budgets (working with guest designers and the Production Manager) and reconciling digital expense reports
• Maintains an inventory of supplies and materials required for daily operations and ordering replacement items as necessary
• Hires and supervises all Costume Shop work-study students, working with the departmental Administrative Assistant to adhere to budgets for student workers by tracking and approving their work hours. Instructs students in the technical aspects of costume construction and the proper and safe use of associated machinery
• Develops work-study Student Shop Coordinator positions. The Costume Shop Manager will recruit, train, and supervisor these leadership positions to help oversee the Costume Shop activities
• Promotes preventative maintenance as a strategy in maintaining costume shop tools and machinery by performing and/or directing others to perform the routine maintenance and cleaning of all tools and equipment in the costume shop, costume storage facilities, and dressing rooms
• Oversee Costume Shop safety and instructs students, faculty, and staff in procedural and material safety
• Administers Performance, Theater, and Dance costume lending to student clubs and off-campus groups in keeping with departmental and college policies
• Recruits and trains student wardrobe crew for department productions. Ensures that costumes maintain their appearance and are appropriately cleaned by supervising costume maintenance during and after productions on and off campus

Position Qualifications

Education and/or experience:

• Bachelors’ degree or the equivalent in education and experience
• Ability to work independently and as a member of a team, along with establishing priorities
• Valid driver’s license required and must meet the College’s Fleet Safety Policy requirements

Physical/Mental Demands: The physical demands and work environment characteristics described herein are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform essential functions of this position and/or may be encountered while performing essential functions. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• To successfully perform the essential functions of this position, an employee must be able to maintain appropriate confidentiality with regard to employee data, documents, issues, etc., and respect privacy needs of employees and past employees with regard to the same.
• The ability to comply with highly inflexible deadlines is required to successfully perform the essential functions of this position; there will be multiple occurrences of sudden, urgent task completion required.
• There may be occurrences of employees, past employees, members of the general public, and others who express opinions, may exhibit strong emotions, which will require the employee to interact professionally, diplomatically, and appropriately in such situations.
• While performing the essential duties of this position, an employee would frequently be required to move around the office space as well as within hallways, meeting rooms, and other parts of the campus facilities.
• There may be multiple/daily instances of prolonged personal computer use which would include keyboard and/or mouse usage as well as viewing a computer monitor.
• An employee must frequently lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 35 pounds to perform essential position functions.
• Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus.
• The overall work environment requires the mental ability to shift focus quickly due to interruptions; an employee must be able to mentally track multiple projects and tasks as well.
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate; however, there may be unexpected instances of somewhat loud sounds.

To Apply:

Interested candidates should apply electronically by clicking the “Apply Now” button on the Colby College website. Please upload a cover letter and resume to your application.