Photo Coverage: The Costumes of EVANGELINE at Charlottetown Festival

Evangeline is a brand new Canadian musical from the mind of Ted Dykstra, and tells the story of Longfellow's heroine who was separated from her lover during the expulsion of the Acadians. BWW was on hand during the days leading up to last night's opening, and we are thrilled to showcase some of the incredible sketches that went into bring this show to life.

We spoke with Costume Designer Charlotte Dean about the challenges associated with creating costumes for a brand new production such as this:

"The biggest challenge is in getting it done. We had a very short rehearsal time and you can't get wardrobe from The Gap. Well, actually you can -we got some sweaters that we converted into the Sailor's tops. But the majority you can't get at the mall. So there was a lot of on-line sourcing and building, plus pulling from the theatre's own inventory. It was a lot to get accomplished in a short amount of time.

Most of the design team has worked together before so we were lucky enough to understand each other's short hand and know that if someone talked about a certain palate, we all knew exactly what it would be."

She summed up the experience by highlighting the epic nature of tackling a production such as this:

"It's been a while since a musical of this size and magnitude has been here. It's an epic show because it spans time and place. At the core is an epic love story but there's a journey along the way."

For more information on the show, visit their official website.

The show runs until Sept 28th at the Charlottetown Festival and tickets can be purchased online here.

All photos by Racheal McCaig Photography