Hey, Tony and Olivier Awards: It’s time to honor wig, hair and makeup artists
Imagine “Wicked” without wigs, hair, or makeup. Or “The Lion King.” Or “The Phantom of the Opera.” Or “Cats.” Frankly, it would all be a bit bizarre and lackluster. None of those shows — in terms of looks, character, and story — would make sense without the incredible wigs, hair, and makeup (WHAM) featured in them, which is why it is so strange that WHAM artists are not recognized at major theater awards organizations.
There is, however, a campaign trying to get this bizarre omission rectified, and Victoria Fenton, the founder of the campaign Recognize WHAM, has set up a Change petition to raise awareness of this issue. I spoke to Fenton, who is a freelance wig maker and a Wigs, Hair, and Makeup Assistant for “Mrs. Doubtfire,” as well as Wigs, Hair, and Makeup Supervisor Alice Hardy, to discuss this campaign, which aims to get awards groups such as the Tonys and Oliviers to finally instate a long overdue category specifically recognizing WHAM artists.
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As Hardy explained, “‘Wicked,’ the whole driving force of the story is that she’s green. Without her being green, what is the story? What sets her apart? You literally can’t have the story of ‘Wicked’ without having the makeup. It’s the same with ‘Mrs. Doubtfire.’ It’s such a crucial element that ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ is applying this makeup to impersonate someone else.”
Fenton created the Recognise Wham campaign after she and her department were looking through last year’s WhatsOnStage Awards nominations and realized there was no WHAM category. She then created the Change petition, which now sits at almost 1,800 signatures.
Fenton and her colleague Charlie Watson (from Samuel James Wigs Ltd) got in touch with WhatsOnStage after WHAM designer Richard Mawbey was nominated for “The 47th” but nominated in the Costume Design category. “Whilst we recognize that this is a great step in the right direction, it felt like a bit of a kick in the teeth for this to just have a small nod within an entirely different departments category, rather than creating a separate standalone category to credit WHAM designers as deserved,” Fenton said.
I reached to WhatsOnStage myself and, happily, they gave a promising response. Their response in full: “We became aware of the Change Petition for a WHAM Category back in December and liaised with Victoria Fenton, one of the organizers, on the day of its creation. Since then, we’ve had a fruitful and exciting conversation with Victoria and should be able to reveal more in due course after months of work and progress, as we begin to prepare for the 25th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards in 2025. Both WOS and the petition creators agreed to retain the WhatsOnStage Awards on the petition title to keep the momentum going.”
Fentob has organized badges for people to wear at this Sunday’s upcoming Olivier Awards, an idea she generated after seeing musician Self Esteem (Rebecca Lucy Taylor) wear a “Recognise WHAM” badge to the WhatsOnStage Awards earlier this year. Fenton understands that Self Esteem wore the badge after Fenton’s campaign earned some traction.
“WhatsOnStage are a very small team of people as Alex Wood [Managing Editor of WhatsOnStage] explained to me, and their budget has restricted them in previous years. This is not a mutual issue for the Olivier Awards, and there really is no excuse for not crediting and celebrating WHAM artists for their work. Another example is that the BAFTAs, Oscars, and Emmys ALL have Hair & Makeup award categories. WHAM is just as essential in theatre and should be recognized as such,”
A spokesperson from Society of London Theatre said: “We have received a range of suggestions for new Olivier categories over the last year. The SOLT Board are committed to reviewing our categories following this year’s event and will consider all suggestions.”
Hardy believes that part of the reason there is no category specifically for WHAM designers is that their work is often wrongly lumped under the umbrella of costuming, as Mawbey was. “In a lot of theatres, wigs and makeup technically come under the umbrella of costume. The head of costume will be an expert in costume but they’re not someone who has a special expertise or interest in hair, wigs, and makeup. So I think that’s part of why there is a lack of recognition. But hair, wigs, and makeup should stand alone. It’s like being lighting under the sound umbrella, in my opinion. They complement each other, yes, but they are two distinct practices.”
Hardy notes that all WHAM artists didn’t just stumble into their jobs, they completed degrees, studied courses, and earned certifications and qualifications. These are trained, specialized artists who have been students of their practice in the same way that actors attend drama schools and sound designers are trained to use the equipment they work with.
WHAM artists and designers work with their supervisors to create the appropriate look for the show and its characters. The supervisor creates the look by talking with the director and/or the show’s lead designer. Together, they come up with an appropriate look for the show’s characters depending on character, history, location, historical accuracy, period, tone, and style. Wigs cost thousands of pounds and, a lot of the time, designers create bespoke wigs for the actors to wear in order to make sure they fit correctly.
But that’s all pre-show. The designers’ work continues when the show is performing, too. They have to manage and track wig, hair, and makeup changes throughout the live performances — and they have to do this within minutes, sometimes seconds, to ensure the play or show runs smoothly. The work doesn’t just apply to the obvious shows, however, like the aforementioned “Wicked” or “The Lion King.” Hardy explained that even making an actor look dirty on stage, or “dirty downing,” requires a hell of a lot of work and attention to detail. So, for “Pirates of Penzance,” Hardy was painting on sunburn to actors as well as applying fake tan and detailing dirt under their nails.
“It’s the attention to detail, even though the audience can’t see it, you still need to do it. Imagine having someone in a really grubby, broken-down costume but their nails are beautiful, their ears are clean, the back of their neck is clean. We are focusing on the tiniest little details that, if they weren’t there, it would look incongruous. Imagine every West End show at the moment — if you take out WHAM designers on every show, how would those shows look?”
“You’d lose so much, not just in terms of the look, but in terms of the story and character, you’d lose so much in who the character is.”
Wig and Hair Designer Bobbie Zlotnik pointed out to me that the only major theatrical award ceremony to recognize WHAM artists specifically is the Drama Desk Awards, even though the WHAM departments have actually “been around centuries longer than many others that have awards available to them.”
“The main issues I find are that if we do our jobs well most people in the audience aren’t going to even know the performers are wearing wigs at all; we also are constantly lumped into the costume design umbrella,” Zlotnik said. “I feel that adding an HMU category to theatrical award shows will help level the playing field and have us actually feel like we belong in this industry, versus just an afterthought.”
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