Guest Post: HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL Costume Designer Sophia Pardon On Her Dream Project

For my fourteenth birthday, I got to see High School Musical on stage, followed by a backstage tour of East High. I came home astounded that people got to make theatre for a job. It was that show that made me realise I wanted to work in theatre, so being offered the role of Costume Designer felt like a complete full-circle moment.

As a millennial raised on Disney, costume-designing High School Musical has been a dream project, but not without its pressures. I needed to recreate these iconic characters in a way that would satisfy an immense fanbase, whilst putting our own stamp on them for a modern audience. We also have an incredible new cast, and the costumes need to allow them to bring their own identities and interpretations. I wanted our East High to feel playful, heightened and immensely nostalgic: grounded in reality, but pushed just enough to feel theatrical and iconic. I wanted to honour the fashion of 2006, but view it through rose-tinted glasses.

My starting point was the Wildcats. Our set designer, Andrew Exeter, presented me with his new Wildcat logo, which became the catalyst for all the kit you see in the show. I loved the strong claw marks and began using them as a visual motif across the Wildcats costumes. The claws slice across the sides of the basketball kits, the backs of our marching band and the torsos of our cheerleaders. I also incorporated athleisure stripes to give the Wildcats a contemporary streetwear influence. I wanted the kits to feel less like traditional school uniforms and more like desirable sportswear – something the students might actually choose to wear. This filtered into our marching band uniforms, which move away from traditional military trimmings in favour of athleisure detailing. There is an emphasis on the WILD in Wildcats: they’re fierce, bold, athletic ….and unique to our new generation of Wildcats.

Costume also plays an important narrative role in establishing East High’s defining cliques – before we rebelliously dismantle the Status Quo. Our brainiacs adopt a safe palette of blues, soft greens and plum, with argyle and stripes. The skaters love high contrast: black mixed with neons, reds, camouflage and tie-dye. Our thespians are more eclectic, mixing vintage pieces, waistcoats, Converse and, of course, a few tilted hats.

For the principals, I cherry-picked some iconic motifs. Ryan needed his hats, Chad has a punchy slogan T-shirt, and Ms Darbus’ costumes flow and exaggerate Kaycee’s wonderful movement. But there are plenty of new elements too. Our Kelsi is more vintage – we imagined that today she would buy her entire wardrobe on Vinted. She’s bold with colour but always layered and covered, alluding to her shyness.

Gabriella begins as the classic girl next door, in rusts, turquoise and deep pinks, before her silhouette becomes more romantic as she finds her voice and her relationship with Troy. Taylor, is the brightest of our brainiacs and exudes confidence through a polished appearance. Another brainiac to mention is our lovely Martha, who we felt really needed to go on a visual journey. She begins the show dressed to blend in, but by the end her confessional love of dance translates into her increasingly bolder wardrobe.

Troy was a unique leading man to design because, ultimately, his costume needed to not stand out. His identity is ruled by basketball, giving him little agency to express who he might really be. His wardrobe is sporty and safe, contrasting with Chad, whose jewellery, loud T-shirts and bold trainers reflect someone far more certain of his place at East High. For Zeke we sourced a lot of vintage sportswear – portraying the typical cool jock (also to help conceal his secret love of baking).

Sharpay and Ryan are a Costume Designer’s dream: neither of them enter a room quietly, and neither do their costumes. Their wardrobes are unapologetically glamorous, coordinated and excessively rhinestoned. Sharpay draws heavily from iconic 2000s red-carpet and runway looks, (spot the JT and Brittany reference). Ryan has a vintage theatricality – sitting somewhere between theatre kid and Y2K fashion boy.

Designing High School Musical has been a wonderfully nostalgic opportunity to dive back into my own millennial past and tap into the joy, energy and optimism of teenage life – creating a world that feels playful, animated and, hopefully, transports our audience somewhere irresistibly happy.