As a costume designer, I begin looking at who and what a character is. I then look at how they relate to other characters in the play. Costumes and hair have the ability to help the audience understand time, location, emotional, and physical aspects of a character. The process of a costume designer begins with analyzing a script and characters, researching the time and fashions of the show, creating a visual rendering of what characters wear in the world. Rendering is a tool of communication, a working document that will often change as the production develops. It is the costume designer’s job to understand why a character wears what they wear. Characters are meant to help create and solidify the world of the play. The costume designer is one of those keys to making that world come alive. This thesis portfolio will include images and brief descriptions of my costume design work and wig work at the University of Iowa. This portfolio contains both realized productions photos, renderings and projects from class work. This document also shows the evolution of my design work over the course of my Master of Fine Arts education. The entire breadth of my thesis portfolio can be found at the link: http://ir.uiowa.edu/theatre_d_folio/.

This thesis focuses on the Celestine monks of France, a largely neglected and distinctive reformed Benedictine congregation, at their apex of growth (c.1350-1450). Based largely within the kingdom of France, but also including key houses in the contiguous territories of Lorraine and the Comtat, they expanded significantly in this period, from four monasteries to seventeen within a hundred years. They also gained independence from the mother congregation in Italy with the coming of the Great Western Schism (1376-1418). The study aims view the French Celestines against the backdrop of a vibrant culture of 'reform' within both the monastic estate (the Observants) and the Church as a whole, as well as the political instability and war in France. It will reveal a congregation alive with the passions of their times and relevant within them. Following an introductory section, chapter 1 will discuss the previously unstudied Vita of the leading French Celestine Jean Bassand (d.1445) in depth and introduce the key themes of the subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 will examine their Constitutions, in the process providing perspective on their hyper-scrupulous understanding of sin and the relation of their statutes to the Christian idea of 'reform'. Chapter 3 will look to anecdotal evidence concerning the quality of their observance in practice, as well the spiritual and moral writings of Pierre Pocquet (d.1408), another important Celestine leader. Chapter 4 will begin to establish how and why the order grew, examining records of benefaction (contemporary martyrologies and charters) as well as taking view of the financial (and in the end, moral) difficulties brought by war through the documents concerning the reductions of founded masses at the Paris and Sens houses. Chapter 5 will look at monumental and anecdotal/literary evidence, as well as the works of Jean Gerson, a friend of the order, to further define the cultural impact of the monks.