That Barbara Jones is involved in Intimate Apparel, the upcoming Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society (BMDS) production, is amusingly apt.

Dr. Jones began sewing while still a young child. She first applied the skill to costumes as a student in university.

Fitting then, that her craftsmanship is used in a play about a gifted seamstress whose corsets are in demand by a cast of characters.

"I was given a toy sewing machine when I was three years old and that was the beginning of it all," she told the Mid-Ocean News this week.

"I used to make all my own clothes but I became involved in amateur theatre when I was at university. They were looking for someone to assist with the costumes for a tour around Europe and I said, 'Well, I can sew'. I went along having no idea what was involved and I got completely hooked.

"However, I was at university studying science and I ended up qualifying as a doctor. I was very torn between continuing medicine and making a life in the professional theatre until I discovered the disparity in income levels between the two. It also seemed a dreadful waste of an education not to proceed with medicine."

That practical choice didn't prevent Dr. Jones from embracing the theatre in all its forms in her spare time. She is today well known, as an actor, director and costume designer, having been involved with BMDS, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Waterspout Theatre and other performing troupes since she moved here a few decades ago.

"I came out to Bermuda nearly 30 years ago and worked at King Edward (VII Memorial Hospital) in anaesthesia and critical care for 22 years. It was a wonderful career, a very satisfying career, but critical care medicine's a game for younger people, particularly here in Bermuda where you don't have junior staff ¿ everyone has to do everything. I found the sleep deprivation was getting quite difficult to handle, plus it was increasingly difficult to keep up to date with new advances."

Despite her work demands, Dr. Jones still found time to pursue her love of the theatre and her retirement in 2000 afforded an even greater commitment.

"All the while I've been here I've been involved in amateur theatre, mostly with BMDS. Obviously there were time constraints on that with at least 60 hours a week working in medicine, but I did what I could and I enjoyed doing it thoroughly so when I was retired I turned to doing it almost full time.

"But one of the perils of retirement is you seem to lose the use of the word 'no'. Instead it's, 'Of course I can do that', 'Yeah I've got time, I can do that'. What happens is you end up overbooking yourself and it becomes stressful and while I still haven't got the right balance on that yet, I'm learning."

As a period piece, Intimate Apparel presented a different challenge to Dr. Jones than she had faced creating costumes for past productions.

The play is set in New York City in 1905, and revolves around Esther, a black seamstress played by Tramaine Stovell, who creates intimate apparel for the range of society ¿ wealthy, white women to prostitutes.

"Her skills and discretion are much in demand, but she dreams of finding the right man and using the money she's saved to open a beauty parlour where black women will be treated as royally as the white women she sews for," reads a synopsis of the Lynne Nottage play.

"Esther begins receiving beautiful letters from a lonesome Caribbean man named George who is working on the Panama Canal, although her heart seems to lie with the Hasidic shopkeeper from whom she buys cloth, and his heart with her. However, the impossibility of the match is obvious to them both, and Esther consents to marry George. When George arrives in New York, he turns out not to be the man his letters painted him to be, and he fritters away Esther's savings on whores and liquor.

"Deeply wounded by the betrayal, but somehow unbroken, Esther returns to the boarding house determined to use her gifted hands and her sewing machine to refashion her dreams and make them anew."

As the play's costume designer, Dr. Jones is essentially 'Esther' as it fell to her to create the articles of clothing the seamstress purportedly sews onstage. In order to do that, she flew to the United States to purchase the fabrics needed to recreate styles fashionable more than 100 years ago.

"Many shows you can start working on maybe just a few weeks ahead of time, because you can acquire stuff more easily," she explained.

"I have stuff in the BMDS wardrobe, I get stuff from the thrift shops and alter them ¿ I often don't have to make too many. It depends on the complexity of the costumes, how many are in the cast, what time period it is. This show is set in 1905 so we're dealing with historic costumes and I do fuss about the accuracy, so I specifically requested a longer lead-time than usual.

"Because of the specific costume requirements, many of these have been made from scratch. I went on a buying trip to New York in February to get the fabrics and items I needed because you can't purchase the stuff here. The auditions were held in mid-March and then as soon as it was cast, I started working on it."

Additional challenges were presented by the radical style changes during the period in which the play is set.

Said Dr. Jones: "1905 is a difficult period because from 1904 to 1910 the clothes changed dramatically. They were evolving rapidly ¿ almost month by month, certainly year by year ¿ from the Edwardian look, with the pouted chest and the sticking out bum and the big flowing skirt, to the much more up-and-down line that was in by 1910.

"However, most of the protagonists in the show are poor. They're not exactly going to be fashion leaders. So I've elected to go with early Edwardian costumes."

Some of the costumes can be seen as a metaphor for the play's characters, "who all have aspirations to become someone else", she added. A society woman seeks a sexy corset to add life to her dead marriage; a prostitute hoping to leave the streets receives a corset made of the same material, but in a more demure style.

"Most of the costumes are actually specified in the script. For instance, there's a piece of beautiful magenta hand-washed silk that (Mr. Marks, the shopkeeper) sells (Esther) that then appears as a corset for the society lady. I had to buy enough fabric to make the garment and ensure there was enough leftover to use as bits onstage."

Consideration also had to be given to the ease with which the characters could quickly disrobe on stage ¿ not a simple feat when clothes from an era famous for complicated fastenings are involved.

"Of course, true period costume fastenings in those days (involved) millions of buttons, and hooks and eyes. You'd spend hours doing it. So I've had to rather carefully fudge the fastenings so they don't look too modern to the eye. But they're not strictly accurate because the actors have to get in and out of them in a realistic period of time. That's posed a bit of an extra challenge and I'm a little nervous about how it's all going to work out."

Lest those unaware of Dr. Jones' extensive theatre experience think her limited to costume making, it should be noted that she is recognised for her competence as an actor and director.

"I started out in costuming but, in fact, I've worked in most of the other aspects of theatre with BMDS, particularly stage management initially, but then I moved over to directing and acting. I've done a little lighting and lighting design as well but I thoroughly enjoyed directing. I've directed a number of shows for BMDS and I've also worked with Waterspout Theatre both directing and acting.

"It would be a tough call if I had to say which I enjoyed most ¿ either directing a show, having a part in the show and going onstage or making the costumes. I love all three areas I just happen to be doing the costumes for Intimate Apparel."

According to the doctor, our society is such that there are few on the island willing or able to make costumes today ¿ and future prospects currently look bleak.

"We have a difficult problem coming up because so few youngsters are even being taught to sew, let alone want to sew and make costumes. There's no logic to it these days because you can buy clothes cheaper than you can make them ¿ I don't even make my own clothes because it's not worth the time and effort."

She said there are a couple others on the island who do "costuming on a regular basis and there are a number of others who've done bits in the past from time to time" but that's it.

"There is a very distinct difference between dressmaking or sewing, and costume making. Costumes are not clothes. They are not finished on the inside in the same way, they usually have to be more robust, and they generally need to be washable. In Bermuda, because the costs of dry cleaning are astronomical, that's very important. Because of the climate you need to be able to wash the mould and mildew out of something that's been stored for a while.

"But unfortunately there's not only a grave shortage of people who make costumes, there's not really anybody much coming up. As I say, people don't learn to sew. They're not interested. Even simple basic sewing seems to be beyond quite a lot of people, they find it daunting. I don't know what's going to happen in the future."

It's important for a costume designer to also be able to match clothing styles with the appropriate era and have an eye for which articles are suitable for the stage, however Dr. Jones brings an additional talent: thrift-shop know-how.

"I'm well known. I buy all my clothes at the thrift stores because I'm constantly in them looking for costumes. I would go so far as to say, I hardly, almost never, buy anything except in a thrift store now. But I do have an extra edge on other people because many of the best garments there, there's just a little something wrong with them ¿ buttons missing or perhaps the hem needs letting down or they're a bit too wide. I look at them and say, 'Oh yes, I can make that work', whereas for many people, that's an impossibility."

Even then, it takes a special knack to recognise what clothing will work best onstage, she added.

"People tend to think that anything, particularly from the '80s on, is contemporary. Well, it's not. And if one has a show set in a contemporary period, very often, the characters require a specific look. You can't just turn up in any old clothes. You'd be surprised how little people have in their wardrobes, particularly men these days. If I say to a young guy, 'Okay you're playing this character you just need a suit and dress shoes', they look at you: 'Suit? Don't own any suit.'

"Shoes are a problem. We usually have to fudge those because you can't get proper historical shoes on a budget but I do try and use shoes that are a gesture to the historical period, that don't look too modern to the audience's eyes. But we're in amateur theatre ¿ you have to be realistic."

What is essential is that there is harmony amongst the clothes used, Dr. Jones insisted.

"Even if it is contemporary dress, you need a design theme for the show. If you just let people go onstage in any old disparate costume it'll look like any old disparate (assembly). Even if it is everyday Bermuda casual dress, you still need an overall coherence to the look ¿ you need colour schemes so as you don't clash with the set and the lighting, people have to be dressed according to character and so their costume works for them onstage.

"I always feel that no actor should have to act against their own costume or through their costume, they should be assisted by their costume. When someone walks onstage, before they even open their mouth, the audience should have an idea of what sort of character they are, by the way they're dressed. They should be able to tell by just the general style of dress, whether they're higher class, lower class ¿ the subtle cues that we all take in when we look at other people without necessarily analysing them. That's one of the areas I try and work on very closely."

Although Dr. Jones is self-taught in that respect, she admits the knowledge hasn't come without study.

"As you know, from time to time on shows we have visiting directors. I'm really just a dabbling amateur. I wouldn't put myself up as anything marvellous in the professional theatre but I have, over the years, worked with a variety of professionals who've come into Bermuda and really learned from experience.

"In terms of period costuming, yes I literally learn. I have books about costuming and the Internet is a godsend. It's impossible to keep enough literature about every era of costume and so, although I have a pretty good overview of the timelines of historical costuming, when I'm doing a show with a very specific timeframe then I'll do more research into that era, to find out things like what sort of underwear they wore."

According to Dr. Jones, one only need look in her home for proof of her dedication to the theatre.

"Most of it is kept in the BMDS wardrobe (but) there's quite a lot of stuff in my home," she added. "It's jam-packed with fabric and patterns and all sorts of bits and bobs; I have two sewing machines, a spare in case my main one breaks. One of these days I really need to clean it all up but it's part of my hobby. It's what I do."

Intimate Apparel runs from May 8 through 17 at Daylesford Theatre at 8 p.m. There is no performance on Sunday, May 11. Tickets, $25, are on sale at the Daylesford box office between 5.30 p.m. and 7 p.m., from April 28 through May 7, and one hour before performances. Tickets also available online, www.boxoffice.bm, outside box office hours.