When Katie Wilson was a Girl Scout, she was featured on a cover of a box of their famous cookies (Samoas, in case you had to know). In the picture, the then-10-year-old is wearing clown makeup and applying it on the face of another girl.

Watch out, Hollywood! an inscription on the box declared.

“Everybody thought I was famous,” Wilson recalled.

Back then, though, young Katie thought: This isn’t me. Makeup and theater weren’t, at the time, on her radar.

Turns out that the art of makeup — as well as other theatrical crafts — became a passion and career for Wilson, who today is an associate professor who teaches costume and makeup in the Department of Theatre and Dance at CSUF.

And earlier this month, she got her first costume design credit for a mainstage production at prestigious South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Thornton Wilder’s classic “Our Town,” directed by Beth Lopes, opened on the Segerstrom Stage on May 7 and runs through June 4.

Artistic family

Wilson, who grew up in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, didn’t get involved in theater until high school.

Perhaps it was inevitable.

Her father was an artist who worked in advertising, and her mother was an art teacher.

“Growing up,” Wilson recalled, “we did all kinds of craft projects all the time.”

Although she did some stage acting while attending St. Monica High School in Santa Monica, Wilson preferred working behind the scenes.

And that’s where her passion grew.

Originally an arts major at UC Santa Cruz, Wilson recalled the moment she found her calling.

“I was giving a tour of the theater for an actor friend of mine who was visiting,” Wilson recounted, “and I saw a red-beaded gown. It was gorgeous. I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’”

Wilson changed her major to theater on the spot and started designing costumes.

She transferred to Loyola Marymount University, where she earned an undergraduate degree in costume design and went on to earn her master’s degree in costume design at UCI.

Over the years, Wilson has designed costumes and makeup for theater, dance, opera, and film.

She’s designed and worked for Pacific Symphony, UC Irvine’s New Swan Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare Orange County, The Chance, LA Fringe Festival, La Mirada Theater, the Barclay Theater, New London Barn Playhouse, and other venues and events.

As an adjunct faculty member before she became a full-time CSUF faculty member in 2017, she taught both undergraduates and graduates at UCI, Chapman University, and Pepperdine University.

Wilson and Lopes, the “Our Town” director who directed SCR’s Theatre for Young Audiences and Families productions of “Junie B. Jones is Not a Crook” and “The Velveteen Rabbit,” have worked together often, primarily at the New Swan Shakespeare Festival.

“Katie is one of those designers that is up for any challenge,” Lopes said. “Over the 10 years we’ve worked together, she’s created such vivid and varied worlds — from the Wild West to turn-of-the-century Europe, fairies, rock stars, and toys come to life.

“She brings a robust, vivid beauty to everything she does and accomplishes it with detail and care. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with her so frequently.”

A full plate

Wilson’s favorite part of costume design is hitting the stores for fabric.

“You have to be somewhat of a shopaholic to enjoy this,” she said with a smile.

And she loves the process of creating — no matter the size of the stage.

“For me,” she said, “it’s not about designing for the biggest star or working on Broadway. It’s about the craft of it.”

Wilson likes to keep several balls juggling.

In addition to her teaching and mentoring duties at CSUF, she’s a potter. Two of her creations are being featured this May at Chemers Gallery in Tustin. The juried exhibition runs through May 28.

Prior to “Our Town,” Wilson did the costume design for Verdi’s opera “Otello” for the Pacific Symphony.

It’s no surprise Wilson’s email signature reads:

“No Rest for the Professional Dreamers”

Said Wilson: “I don’t want to do things I don’t like doing — I want to do the things I love.”

More information about “Our Town” is available at www.scr.org 

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