Who's Who: Paige Howie

Name: Paige Howie

Age: 40

Occupation: Freelance hair and makeup stylist and dresser for the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, apprentice hair stylist at Elixir salon

Do you currently do work for the theatre? I have not worked for the Berkeley Rep since last June. The show that I did was a world premiere of a play written by Leigh Silverman called In the Wake. It did go to Broadway. I did hair and makeup, and I was a dresser.

Is that your background, doing hair and makeup for theatre? That’s what I’ve done for the last 10 years of my life. I was on tour with several national tours, more rock n’ roll. I started out in Radio City as a dresser – in Nashville, Tennessee – for their Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I dressed seven Rockettes and the dance captain. That was my first gig as a theatrical dresser and costumer. That sort of launched me on that career.

I was in the music industry before that as a contract administrator for performing artists. Once I got into the costuming part of it, hair and makeup came naturally and I started to work with wigs. I moved to New York and did several apprenticeships for wig masters and wig stylists there. I did some summer stock and then moved out to work for San Jose Rep as the costume director.

And where are you from? I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina. Coming out here to work for the San Jose Rep was a big move for me, because I had not lived anywhere for about six years. I’d been on the road constantly. It was a big move but a good move. I worked for San Jose Rep for about a year, and then I started to work freelance for Berkeley Rep and they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Now I work for them on contract, but pretty much full-time ... Usually Berkeley Rep does six to eight shows of varying sizes during their season, from August to June-July. The cast size really determines the need for an extra dresser and for wigs and makeup. It’s kind of on an as-needed basis. I think I’ve worked for them three seasons now off and on. I haven’t done anything much this season, unfortunately.

Are you going to combine hairstyling with costuming? Yes, because wigs need to be styled. They don’t always need to be cut. Especially if they’re human hair wigs: then you style them like you would your own hair. If they’re synthetic wigs, you set them with steam. Both things are time-consuming, so you need someone who’s dedicated to that kind of work. You need knowledge of hairstyling … You have to make sure that the hairstyle will survive. It’s worn every day and it may need to be styled several times a week.

How do you like working in El Cerrito at a hair salon? It’s a different clientele. It seems to be different in that there’s not a lot of foot traffic … It seems to be more of a destination location. It’s a nice space. The street traffic doesn’t seem to be too obtrusive. People seem to want a good bit more color than I actually thought they would want, being a more natural – not necessarily urban – location as opposed to Berkeley, where people sort of want wash and wear. These women want to be colored every four to six weeks; they really want highlights.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? I just worked on an independent film last summer with a friend of mine who’s an actor, Rowan Brooks. He was the director, and I was the makeup designer, wig supervisor and hair stylist. We just won an indie film festival contest two or three weeks ago at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. It’s called Two From the Line, and it’s a little 20-minute short. I got to see my work on the screen. It was super exciting and then we won!