Even though it’s winter, a new stand of birches has appeared on campus. But unlike their arboreal neighbors on Alumni Walk, these trees aren’t rooted in soil.

Instead, within the warmth of Schaeffer Theatre, they rise from boards, held in place by ropes threaded through their hollow interiors and affixed to fly rails high above.

The clever cardboard and paper recreations are the handiwork of Sophie Hafter ’25, a theater major from New York City, the stage manager for the �ֲ���ý production of The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic tale about a gathering of artists, lovers, and dreamers at a Russian country estate.

Hafter’s work on the play is part of her senior thesis in theater stage management, and it’s all-encompassing. During rehearsals, she’s onstage setting up props one moment, and perched in the sound booth above the theater the next.

Between collaborating with to notate blocking and running sound effects, she briefly disappears into the carpentry shop below the theater to fulfill another of her many responsibilities: the trees.

The birches are key part of the set that has been designed by Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell and Kerrigan Anuszewski ’25, a double major in economics and theater from Winthrop, Maine, whose work on the play’s scenic design is part of her own thesis work. 

When McDowell was in graduate school at Yale, she had the opporunity to travel through rural Russia, where she saw for herself how clusters of birches interrupted immense, rolling fields. The trees, often depicted in Chekhov productions, have long been symbolic of Russian culture.

On stage, the realism of the white birches stands out starkly against the dark undertones of The Seagull. Without branches and with their tops intentionally obscured, the tree trunks subtly evoke both the natural and the surreal.

“I wanted something that reminded one of birch trees, but that felt a little more abstract,” McDowell says. “There’s a certain amount of romanticism in this play, and we didn’t want it to be hyperrealistic.”

In working with set designers McDowell and Anuszewski, Hsu seeks to explore the tension between reality and distortion. “I wanted to respect the realism that is often associated with this play, but also offer a pathway into the more avant-garde,” says Hsu, who is at �ֲ���ý as part of the Learning Associates program. “And so there are layers to this production that are not typical to The Seagull.”

Striated patterns painted across the stage and a mountainous backdrop — designed in the colorful, phantasmic style of children’s illustrator Ivan Bilibin — enhance the suspension of disbelief, drawing the audience into the story.

“We live in a world of CGI, but theater is never CGI, and I don’t believe in trying to lean into that idea of photorealism theater,” McDowell says. “People are more interested in something that feels evocative or magical.”

To “grow” each tree, Hafter started with three cardboard tubes connected to make a 20-foot trunk, with the middle tube cut to fit snugly inside the other two. 

“It took me a while to figure out how to get them to connect,” Hafter says. “I cut one of them all the way down the middle and curled it into itself so that it became thinner to fit into the other two.” 

With a piece of real bark from one of the many birch trees on campus resting nearby as a loose guide, Hafter dampened a large sheet of paper and base-painted it white. She then flicked black, white, and yellow paint onto the paper, using a dry brush to move the colors around and mimic a birch’s texture and colorings.

Once the paper was dry, Hafter affixed the “bark” around the cardboard rolls, and the tree was complete. She repeated each step — with help from Technical Director of Theater and Dance Justin Moriarty, engineering major Melinda Kostrinsky ’26 of Miami, Fla., and economics major Rohini Kandasamy ’27 of Neshanic Station, N.J. — until she had 12 trees. At times, the carpentry shop below the theater rivaled an arboretum. 

“There’s a lot of trial and error, but I think they look pretty good,” Hafter says.

Hafter has training in scenic arts — the art of crafting scenery, props, and backdrops for theatrical productions. She learned how to create textures like the faux bark while studying abroad at Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, England. She spent both semesters of her junior year studying scenic arts at the performing arts school 12 miles outside of central London.

Across the pond, Hafter put her hands to work learning the basics of carpentry, welding, sewing, and painting. She tackled mixed-media projects, including an ornate crown of wires and beading modeled after a Chinese wedding crown, a 3-foot loafer shoe made from polystyrene, and a miniature door scaled down from a door she measured at Oxford University. 

Hafter and peers also welded a 20-foot-wide turntable — a revolving stage platform — with a central divider so that different sets could be built on each side.

During her time abroad and at �ֲ���ý, Hafter has sharpened skills that build upon interests she’s had since childhood. Growing up in New York City, Hafter had many friends who loved to act, but she was quiet and had stage fright. In middle school, her art teacher introduced her to set design and fabrication, and Hafter quickly took to the art and “the magic of theater.”

As she grew in her craft and worked alongside other energetic, talented thespians, Hafter became more confident. 

“Being around those kinds of people has really helped bring me out of my shell and learn to not care as much about how I’m perceived in not just theater, but in life,” Hafter says. “The people in theater have very interesting perspectives on life, and I appreciate it a lot.”

In addition to her work as The Seagull’s stage manager, Hafter is writing a two-part paper to fulfill her thesis, for which Associate Professor of Theater Courtney Smith is her advisor. The first part of the document will explain the ins and outs of stage management and the critical role of the job, while the second part of the thesis will discuss the importance of diversity and representation in theater productions. 

For this latter portion, Hafter will draw from her own experience, the existing literature, and interviews with diverse people who have worked as stage managers, a role historically held by white women. She hopes to exhibit the power of theater as a means for bringing about social change.

“Theater and art in general, whether it’s performance or visual, is such an important tool for activism and making people aware of other experiences that they might not know about,” Hafter says. 

Theater in particular, she says, has the unique ability to merge the outrageous with the serious for an entertaining lesson.

“I love the spectacle of theater,” Hafter says. “It doesn’t have to be real. It can still be telling a story that has a moral at the end, but can be this happy, crazy thing.”

At first glance, it would seem there’s not much to do in the �ֲ���ý costume shop. Spring theater performances that require tailor-made outfits have been canceled, as has the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival. But the space is still there, as is equipment like sewing machines and an industrial iron, plus a lot of surplus fabric.��

Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell, Assistant Technical Director Aidan McDowell, and five rising seniors who are still living on campus decided to put those resources to use by sewing hundreds of cloth face coverings for �ֲ���ý employees’ use.

��“This is one of the few times in life where a practical skill that, not only do we have in our wheelhouse, but that I really advocate as part of the �ֲ���ý experience, could come to the forefront,” Chris McDowell says.��

The students and employees in the costume shop, who are being paid for their work, are among a few groups and individuals who are making protective equipment for employees on campus, says Director of Environmental Health and Safety Jessica Smith.��

The masks are made in accordance with . Cloth face coverings are recommended for use in public settings where social distancing isn’t possible to reduce the spread of coronavirus, while the CDC says medical-grade masks and respirators should be saved for healthcare workers.

When the events that normally occupy the �ֲ���ý costume shop in the spring and summer were canceled, Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell quickly started using surplus and donated fabric to make cloth face coverings. She is following �ֲ���ý guidelines, as well as state guidelines for people in non-public settings, maintaining a 6-foot distance from students. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)(Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In addition to the costume shop team, Lysanne Doucette of College Advancement and retiree Shirley Govindasamy are also hand-making masks for their fellow employees.

Assistant Professor of Biology Andrew Mountcastle, in addition to 3D-printing protective face shields for healthcare workers, is coordinating a team making “ear savers,” devices to hook elastic bands together behind the head instead of one’s ears. Still more faculty and staff are making masks for themselves and the wider Lewiston community.����

“They’re so well-made,” Smith says. “The fabrics are beautiful, the stitching is tight, and they have multiple layers of good fabric.”

Smith, who is distributing the masks and helping to coordinate production, has already shared 432 masks from campus sources and more from a local industrial supplier. The masks are primarily going to staff who still need to work on campus, particularly security, Post & Print, limited numbers of dining and facilities staff, and — until the campus steam plant was shut down this month for the summer — boiler operators.

Smith says she currently has enough face coverings for any employee who asks for one, and she hopes to have hundreds of masks at the ready when more employees — and, eventually, students — return to campus. That’s thanks in large part to the supply of handmade masks, which are of particularly high quality.

The variety of surplus and donated fabrics the costume shop uses to make face masks serves a dual purpose: Different fabrics on each side of some masks help wearers keep track of which side is touching the face, and student mask-makers get to flex their creative muscle. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“They’re so well-made,” Smith says. “The fabrics are beautiful, the stitching is tight, and they have multiple layers of good fabric. We have options to fit the various sizes and shapes of people’s heads. As I hand them out, people are happy to receive them and appreciate how well they’re made.”����

It’s a true assembly line at Schaeffer. Depending on the type of mask, there are 12 to 15 steps of outlining and cutting fabric; stitching together layers of fabric, elastic, and wire; ironing; quality control; and, in recent weeks, putting together more “ear savers.”��

The fabric comes from the costume shop’s stash as well as a supply donated by Chris McDowell’s mother, an avid quilter. The masks have two layers of fabric, each side with a different pattern so the wearers can keep track of which side is against their face.��

The seven mask-makers in the �ֲ���ý costume shop have produced upward of 300 masks so far for �ֲ���ý employees to wear on the job. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Because employees’ preferences differ, the group is making both double-sided shaped masks — made to fit tightly over the bridge of the nose — and pleated masks, each coming with an instruction sheet on how to wear and wash them.��

“We’ve been getting a lot of feedback from the people we’ve been giving them to about what they prefer and what they need, so we’ve been able to tailor some of the requests,” Chris McDowell says.��

Some of the student mask-makers already have experience with sewing or working with fabrics. Jade Zhang ’21 of Hefei, China, is a theater major concentrating on costume design, with Chris McDowell serving as her thesis advisor. It was Zhang who recruited most of the other four student mask makers.

Production of face masks reminds Nicole Kumbula ’21, left, of helping her mother at Singmark, a factory shop in her native Zimbabwe. The students are following �ֲ���ý guidelines, as well as state guidelines for people in non-public settings, for students who have remained in residence, maintaining a 6-foot distance. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Nicole Kumbula ’21 of Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, also has some experience around textiles — she would sometimes accompany her mother to Singmark, a small clothing factory where her mother works in retail, and help her do small tasks, such as folding fabrics and buying buttons.��

So the first day Kumbula came to the costume shop to make masks, “there was sort of a nostalgia for me, and I decided I would like to stay and learn to do each and every single part,” she says. “It reminds me of my mom and everybody at home.”����

“It’s a creative process that can also relieve pressure you get from quarantine.”

At the same time, she and her mask-making colleagues are learning new skills, particularly related to the (relative) mass production of items. “I’m a chemistry major, so precision and measurements are on my mind all the time,” Kumbula says. “It’s been nice to apply that side of my brain to this place as well.”��

Gabi Gucagaite ’21 puts on a mask. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Beyond learning new skills and providing a critical service for the campus, the students’ new job provides a sense of structure and purpose during a stressful time.��

“It’s nice to have a dedicated time when you come in and just do something with your hands,” says Gabi Gucagaite ’21 of Kaunas, Lithuania.��

“It’s a creative process that can also relieve pressure you get from quarantine,” adds Wenjing Zheng ’21 of Wuhan, China.��

The students also have the regular chance to see each other in person — not a guarantee, given social distancing rules. (The seven mask-makers are only coming into contact with each other and in the case of the students,�� their roommates, if they have them, McDowell says.)��

Stacia Poulin of Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events prepares a hamburger on the grill at Commons, wearing a mask that the �ֲ���ý costume shop created. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

It’s been a bonding experience, particularly for the five students.�� “We just get to know each other so much better and in unexpected ways” in the costume shop, says Jade Zhang. “We’re making something good out of the pandemic.”��

And, being on campus, they get to see the fruits of their labors.

“We definitely have seen staff wearing the masks that we make here,” says Zhao Li ’21 of Guangzhou, China. “You feel like you’re a part of something.”��

You could say that in her written greeting to visitors entering a museum exhibition in downtown Lewiston, �ֲ���ý theater professor Christine McDowell bares her sole.

In an introductory text on a gallery wall, McDowell describes a lifelong interest in shoes that stems from her fascination with the creativity and cultural clues represented in footwear. Her shoe jones, she says, earned her the nickname “Imelda Marcos,” after the Philippine political figure “infamous for having over 3,000 pairs of shoes.”

In collaboration with Emma Sieh, collections and exhibits coordinator at Lewiston’s Museum L-A, McDowell put together the museum’s current gallery exhibition, Footwear: From Function to Fashion. McDowell researched the show, designed it with Sieh and others, and provided shoes to display. (The �ֲ���ý Museum of Art and theater department also loaned shoes, as did the Androscoggin Historical Society, in addition to supplying research materials.)

In fact, from platforms to peek-toes and from slingbacks to Spectators, about three-quarters of the shoes on display come from McDowell’s personal collection of 200-plus pairs. Many of them are concentrated in a spectacular “Wall of Shoes” across an entire wall of the gallery.

Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell, left, worked with Emma Sieh, Museum L-A collections and exhibits coordinator, to create the museum’s shoe exhibition. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The exhibition explores the shoe as a medium for social history, the stunning range of footwear styles, and the craft and artistry of shoemaking. And of course, fittingly for a museum dedicated to the history of local industry, spotlights the economic might that shoemaking once wielded hereabouts.

At one point, Auburn, Maine, was the fifth-largest shoe manufacturing center in the U.S. In the peak year of 1922, some 8,000 workers in 12 major factories turned out 70,000 pairs of shoes per day in Lewiston’s sibling city across the Androscoggin River. (Footwear has coincided with Auburn’s celebration of its 150th anniversary this year.)

An associate professor of theater at �ֲ���ý, McDowell designs sets and costumes for college productions and teaches various aspects of theatrical design, including fashion. The social and historical meanings of apparel are central to her interest, but she doesn’t overlook another dimension of shoe power.

As a woman standing five feet tall, McDowell states in that prominent wall text, “I readily acknowledge the positive psychological effect shoes can have on those who wear them, and have often felt more confident in a pair of heels.”

Business and brand names associated with the local shoe industry are handwritten on a long strip of paper, displayed with some of the shoes named. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

During a casual tour of the exhibition, which runs through early January, we talked with McDowell about protecting soldiers’ feet from burning desert sand, the last shoemaker standing in Lewiston-Auburn, and, of course, the Wall of Shoes.

You have a lot of shoes.

I never thought of myself as being especially focused on shoes. I collected them as just a natural outgrowth of being a costume designer and being someone interested in clothing as an aspect of social history. I’m fascinated by everyday objects, and how we venerate them and love them. And I can find beauty in any of these particular objects.

Where do you look for shoes?

As the designer for the theater department, a big part of my job is shopping. Every different play presents a different set of challenges, and so you’re always looking in different places. A bunch of the shoes that are on the Wall of Shoes just came from me trolling the racks at Goodwill and Salvation Army, and knowing what to look for.

Footwear has a great century-long timeline of Auburn’s shoe industry, plus other glimpses at local shoemaking, but it’s not purely a historical exhibit. How would you characterize it?

We tried to create an exhibit that would have a broad appeal, that wouldn’t be so narrow that we couldn’t really fill the space, and that would celebrate an everyday pedestrian object, no pun intended, that people don’t normally think about in a museum context. We wanted it to be fun, just celebrating objects — not necessarily steering away from the history, but looking more at something broader and looser.

The Maine shoe industry was known for moccasins and loafers. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Shoes are something everybody is familiar with, but have little aspects that you might not think about. Where does a shoe style come from? For instance, modern wedge shoes were invented in the 1930s by this famous shoe designer, Salvatore Ferragamo, which I never knew until I started doing research. You just assume that styles develop gradually over time. But we can point to Ferragamo and say, “This man invented this particular style.”

The museum has a lot of old lasts, the foot-shaped forms that shoes are built around, and you use them as a design element in the exhibit. What do lasts tell us?

One reason that Maine was so successful in shoe manufacturing was the timber industry, because they could make all of the lasts. That’s an example of the kinds of ancillary businesses that helped make the city successful.

There was a huge turnover in shoe companies here. It was an incredibly difficult business to make viable. But because Auburn had such great infrastructure for shoe manufacturing — it had trained employees, manufacturing spaces, machinery — when a company would go bust, somebody else would immediately come in and buy up all the equipment, rehire the workers.

Holding a Western boot, Christine McDowell poses in front of the Wall of Shoes. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

So many shoes of so many different types were made in Auburn, right into the 1960s, yet locally mass-produced shoes from decades past are pretty scarce.

It was very coincidental that I volunteered to be on the museum exhibition committee two years ago. I think about 75 percent of the shoes that you see here are from my personal collection. So in some ways that shaped the exhibit, because it was available material.

Auburn was once known as the White Shoe City, because there was an early manufacturer here, Ara Cushman & Co., of what we would think of as athletic footwear. It involved a new manufacturing process, so it was a leap of faith, but it was very successful here. But I could not find a single surviving example anywhere of this particular type of canvas shoe.

The big Cushman-Hollis factory was demolished in 1972, and that symbolizes the end of the Auburn shoe industry. But there are still shoe manufacturers in L-A and Maine.

One of them is Rancourt & Co. Shoecrafters. They make high-end shoes in Lewiston, and that’s a really tangible link we have to the history of local shoe manufacturing. Those incredibly handsome men’s shoes that you see in the exhibit are from Rancourt.

Rancourt was incredibly generous. They loaned us materials, loaned us shoes, a video about shoe production that we’re showing. They let us tour their factory, which was such a thrill to me, because I got to see shoes being manufactured.

The Plexiglas display shows the 29 pieces of an “exploded” Rancourt shoe. Intact Rancourts are mounted on the wall at left. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

What are some of your favorite shoes in the exhibition?

There’s a pair of traditional Russian folk shoes made out of a material called bast, which is from tree bark. They were actually hand-woven for me, so it was nice to be able to put them in there.

And there’s one pair that are my oldest and probably most valuable shoes. They are “straights” — there’s no difference between left and right. And they’re embroidered with dyed straw and decorated with metallic threads and lace. I thought originally these were from around the 1830s, but the heels make me think they’re a little bit later, so around the 1850s.

Hand-made shoes, then?

Shoemaking was a really easy industry to have at home. You didn’t need a lot of expensive materials or a lot of square footage. Until the advent of the factories, people would make shoes for their families or the smaller local community. So those could very well have been produced in a small home.

With decorations including straw embroidery, these 19th-century shoes from Christine McDowell’s collection are among her favorites. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

You can find patterns in 19th-century women’s magazines, like Peterson’s Magazine, for slippers and embroidery designs. You could conceivably embroider something to bring to a cobbler for working into a shoe. Or with a soft-enough sole, it would be something a women could sew herself, like slippers for her husband. I’ve seen many, many patterns for crewelwork or petit point, things like that, to make men’s slippers as gifts.

Tell us about the Wall of Shoes.

Kirstin Koepnick ’21 and Jason Ross ‘19 helped me assemble this, along with Aidan McDowell, the assistant technical director in the theater department, who happens to be my nephew. I designed it, he and I engineered it, and then the four of us — it was like a barn-raising, because it was really complicated to get this minimalist object to stand freely in the space.

The Wall just celebrates aesthetically pleasing, interesting shoes from the 20th century. I think all but one of the shoes there are mine. You know, people are always sending you things that are relevant to your industry. So, some of these shoes people actually gave me.

And I also happen to have really small feet [McDowell laughs], which has proved advantageous, because people are like, “I can’t wear these, you can have them.” So small feet and a particular interest have proven to be really beneficial.

The Museum L-A exhibition Footwear includes a display of shoes from non-U.S. cultures. The basket-weave shoe at the left rear of the display was handmade for Christine McDowell in Russia. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

An iconic pair of 1970s multicolored disco platform heels sits on a shelf in the Pettigrew Hall office of Associate Professor of Theater B. Christine McDowell.

Along with other shoes, these disco-era platform heels sit on a shelf in the Pettigrew Hall office of Associate Professor of Theater B. Christine McDowell. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“In and of themselves they are fantastic works of art,” says McDowell, a costume and scenic designer, but “they are also a marker for period color palettes and overall cultural aesthetic.”

Those shoes and others in McDowell’s collection provide a walk through the evolution of design. “They’re another aspect of costume history, and a way to identify eras and look at cultural and aesthetic trends,” she says.

McDowell estimates that she has 200-plus pairs of vintage shoes, not all of which were sought out by her. It’s curious, she says, how “when you show an interest in something particular, people start giving things to you.” In that sense, she enjoys recalling where, from whom, and how she got many of her shoes.

Many are at home, she says, with the more fantastic ones ending up in her office, either on the bookshelves or in an adjacent walk-in closet, where she stashes all sorts of costume and design treasures, such as a hand-stitched dress from the 1840s and a still-trendy Victorian-era piece of mourning jewelry made from hair.

She has something for every interest. And her students are interested, especially in the shoes. “They really connect with them because they’re like toys. Students are always coming into the office and saying, ‘Oh my God, look at your shoes! I love your shoes!’”

She does wear them, including the disco platforms. “Other than the sheer joyfulness of those shoes, I like to put them on. I feel quite cool — and tall — when I put them on.”