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In fact, the above skills belong to an 11-time nominee and two-time winner of the Barrymore Award for Costume Design (which is Philadelphia’s equivalent of New York’s Tony and Washington, D.C.’s Helen Hayes Awards).

A fraction of Stefanowicz’s prolific and award-winning output over the past 25 years is displayed in her current solo exhibit “Theatrical Threads: The Art of Costume Design” at the Art Gallery. Six times since 1989, the American College Theatre Festival has awarded Stefanowicz its Certificate of Merit for Costumes.  

A free public reception to meet the artist took place in the gallery on the Villanova campus on Sept. 10.  Stefanowicz’s show continues to Wednesday, Oct. 6. The exhibit is supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency. 

The Villanova show marks the first time that Stefanowicz’s work will be presented in any place other than on a stage or in a movie. Despite the fact that she has conceived, designed, created, sewn – and in a pinch, glued, pinned, taped and stapled –hundreds of costumes for scores of productions from Shakespeare to musical comedy, getting ready for the Villanova gallery been a daunting experience.

“I’ve never done anything like this, and neither has anyone I know who does what I do,” she says.  Locating her work – the costumes, hats, footwear, corsets and accessories from her work for the Wilma Theater, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and the Villanova University Theatre – has meant rooting through attics, closets and other dark places where lost costumes go.

Once gathered and restored, their journey to Villanova’s art gallery will be a short one. Since 1980, Stefanowicz’s full-time job has been costume shop manager for the Villanova University Theatre. She also lectures on costume design for Villanova’s Graduate Theatre Department and has lectured for the University of Pennsylvania’s costume design course. 

An inveterate Philadelphian, the long-time and quite content Wayne, PA, resident has rejected overtures to ply her trade for New York stages.  “She is one of the most prolific costume designers in Philadelphia theater . . . a talent just a nudge removed, passionate compatriots say, from full-blown recognition in New York,” a newspaper reviewer wrote a number of years ago. 

“You can’t have your Philadelphia lifestyle in New York, “said Stefanowicz. “Villanova gives me the opportunity to do what I like to do where I like to do it. I’m as busy as I want to be, sometimes more so.” Her movie work has included helping to make costumes for Oprah Winfry’s “Beloved” (1997) and Tom Hanks’ “Philadelphia” (1992).

Well, then, how about Hollywood? “Movies are hard work and the day starts early,” she notes, adding that she’s not against either hard work or long hours, which she has been putting in for years.  “It’s just that I’m not an early morning person. For me, working from seven in the morning to seven at night is much harder than working from 10 to 10.”

Stefanowicz’s goal for the Villanova exhibit is to combine an art gallery and theater experience, while giving viewers a sense of the costume designing process. Her costumes will stand on manikins and be suspended from rafters, while the walls will carry her original design sketches along with photos of her finished work in the productions in which they appeared.

Stefanowicz notes that in addition to vividly reflecting a stage character’s era, place, and station in society, costumes “build characters from the outside in. They are a visual explanation of who a character is and what she or he is about.” For her, the costuming process includes going to and renting movies, and poring over books of paintings and photographs that depict the dress styles she will be recreating.

It was her ability to sew that led Stefanowicz to her current station. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in education from Villanova in 1978, she entered the University’s master’s theater program with thoughts of being a director. As a graduate assistant with sewing skills, she was assigned to the costume shop -- and the rest is history.

“I wasn’t planning on doing this, it just sort of happened,” she says, adding, “I liked directing, but I didn’t want to go back to school for directing, which is what it would have taken. I got my first design job from the Philadelphia Theater Company, and my career was launched. Twenty five years later, I’m still here.”

As it turned out, Stefanowicz went back to school for many years to earn a master’s degree in fine arts in costume design at Temple University in 1989. 

More information about the exhibit may be obtained by telephoning the Art Gallery at 94612. Exhibited works may also be previewed on the Internet at www.artgallery.villanova.edu .