Text by Wiley Wood
Photo by Bruce Frisch

On a Monday morning in early November, costume designer Susan Aziz apologized for the bareness of her studio. Fittings had been held over the weekend for the Nutmeg Ballet’s new production of “The Nutcracker,” and most of the costumes were now at the theater.

“We fitted nine mice, eight soldiers, three little lambs and two nutcracker heads,” said Aziz, who moved to Norfolk this summer with her husband.

Aziz, who has been working on the project since May, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in the 1980s, where she studied conservation of historic textiles. She originally worked as a conservator for New York museums, helping to prepare exhibits.

It was only after moving to Litchfield with her young family that Aziz shifted her attention to costume making. While her daughters were attending the Torrington School of Ballet, she was invited to create costumes for the three bears in “The Nutcracker.” She has been working in theater and dance ever since.

For an Earth Day celebration by the Paul Winter Consort at the First Congregational Church in West Hartford this past April, Aziz created a 12-foot-long whale puppet, which porpoised up the aisle while a flock of seagulls, animated on the end of long poles by members of the congregation, wheeled overhead and flapped their wings.

She has worked on the Hartford Stage Company’s production of Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” One year she was asked to make a doll that, at a certain point in the performance, turned into the living Ghost of Christmas Past.

During her years in Litchfield, Aziz enjoyed a long collaboration with St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. Since the late 1990s, the church has mounted an elaborate pageant for the Feast of the Epiphany. With the help of many parishioners, Aziz designed and fabricated the gigantic parade puppets, some of them 12 feet tall—angels, shepherds, sheep and kings—which are carried by children of the church school. Recently, a new scene was added to the pageant, depicting the Peaceable Kingdom, for which Aziz created the wolf puppet that lies down with the lamb, as well as a leopard, a lion, a calf and a child. “I’ve specialized in critters,” says Aziz.

For Nutmeg Ballet’s new production of The Nutcracker, which celebrates the company’s 50th anniversary, there are new sets by Roger LaVoie as well as new costumes. “The production looks really fresh,” says Aziz. “It’s a good year to come back and see it.” Aziz explains that she is part of a huge team of designers working on different aspects of the production.

The tin soldiers whose costumes Aziz has created appear in the ballet’s first act, after the Christmas party at the home of the Stahlbaum family. The daughter, Clara, who was presented with a nutcracker doll by her charismatic but frightening godfather, Drosselmeyer, gets up in the night to visit the Christmas tree and is caught in a battle between the tin soldiers and an army of mice.

“I wanted them to be fierce,” says Aziz about the soldiers, “fierce little girls—because they are played by first graders, mostly girls—fierce little soldiers.” The blue and red military jackets have a classic look, with epaulettes, piratical cuffed sleeves and gold frogging. The dancers will wear brown fur hats and high-waisted pants that give them a long, crisp line.

Aziz, who works from a studio in the Whiting Mills building in Winsted, explains that a dance costume has to be light and unrestrictive and allow good visibility. The helmet for the nutcracker costume has a strong, lightweight armature, over which the features are pasted, “like Mr. Potato Head, if you remember that toy,” says Aziz. There are eyes (made of see-through material), a nose and mouth and a bristling mustache.

With the mice, who are also part of Clara’s nighttime dream, Aziz has produced a costume that is “a little scary, a little goofy.” It has a large foam mouse head with floppy ears, and a pear-shaped body, with a padded belly and hips. “The girls who play the mice think it’s hilarious to wear all that padding.”

Aziz, who was happy to find that Norfolk has its own puppet festival, looks forward to a break after the Christmas season, if only to settle into her new house.

The Nutcracker runs Dec. 7 and 8 at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, and Dec. 14 and 15 at the Bushnell in Hartford.  For tickets, visit nutmegconservatory.org.