The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre will wrap up its production of “Pride and Prejudice” this weekend. The Jane Austen classic requires strict attention to detail when it comes to period costumes and hair. For nearly 20 years, the same Milwaukee stylist has been designing the hair for actors at the rep. But as WUWM contributor Jane Hampden has learned, other people seek out the wigmaster’s services, far from the bright lights of the stage.
The wigmaster is 44 year old Kevin McElroy. In the Milwaukee Rep’s cavernous costume shop, he stashes bins of hair: tousled curls, fancy up-do’s, dreadlocks. He’s lined up little sprays of hair like paint samples.
"A lot of different hair that you use to tie into wigs, blending different hair together to create a color with different lengths,” McElroy says.
McElroy’s everyday business is cutting hair at his salon in Shorewood. Most clients are looking for a cut ‘n color, or a hip new look. But some come in for more dramatic transformations.
"When I got the cancer all I could think about was I wanted it out. I wanted to be here for my kids," says Terry Kively.
Kively was 48 when she had a double mastectomy followed by chemotherapy. Then she lost her thick, curly auburn hair.
"A lot of women just wear a scarf and a lot of women don’t do anything, but then in the back of my head I was just thinking of my 10 year old and his whole world wanted his family to be as normal as possible and as much like everybody else’s,” Kively says.
So Kively summoned the courage to make an appointment at Kevin McElroy’s salon. In the back, there’s a heavy pair of maroon velvet curtains. They conceal a comfortable place for women who never thought they’d be trying on wigs.
“The people that are coming to me know that they don’t want to draw attention to this aspect of their life, they want to be able to walk around and feel as though somebody is not noticing what they’re going through,” McElroy says.
McElroy and Kively discussed what do to with the thin wisps of gray hair left on her head.
“I said well is there something we can do that maybe I can just hide this a little more I didn’t lose all of it yet and he just looked at me very calmly and said Terry I think we should just do it. And so then I let him shave my head,” Kively says.
“They’re definitely scared. I don’t want to be scared for them. Some people do get emotional and some people do cry. I tear up too with what they’re talking about, it’s hard not to,” according to McElroy.
The wig McElroy styled for Kively was shoulder-length brown with a touch of red. The stylist says it’s the natural look of his wigs that’s been drawing cancer survivors to the salon for 15 years.
"When people are sitting and doing their chemo they all talk to each other and then they notice that, 'Wow, you have a really nice wig, where’d you get that from.' So that’s kind of how that all started,” McElroy says.
These days, word of mouth is attracting a new set of clients to the salon; people on a different journey.
“They have an idea of who this person is who’s coming out, who they are, who they’re morphing into,” McElroy says.
McElroy is talking about his transgender clients. One of them is Brianna Fleury. She spent most of her 53 years as Brian, a union electrician at Miller Brewing. Fleury says she was sure she was meant to be a woman, but didn’t know how to be one.
“You never had the opportunity as a child to play dress up and put makeup on or anything, so you really don’t have a clue on what you’re doing,” Fleury says.
Fleury began figuring it out at McElroy’s salon, behind the maroon curtain. She emerged with a long, bright blonde wig. But she says her change from married, balding guy to single, striking blonde did not go over well with co-workers.
“They had a pretty rough time. I could walk into a shop and there’d be like 20 people in there and the whole place would all clear out,” Fleury says.
While the union crowd at Miller did not appreciate the new hairstyle, Fleury says her friends were wowed.
“It’s like, how did you do that, cause they don’t actually believe it’s a wig,” Fleury says.
Stylist Kevin McElroy says for some people at painful crossroads, wigs – and hair - are not frivolous.
“Well if you were to describe somebody walking down the street, one of the main things you’re going to say is what kind of hair they had. You know, as superficial as it sounds, it’s a big part of who somebody is. It's their identity," McElroy says.
Onstage at the Milwaukee Rep, the wigmaster’s work is purely theatrical, but for people who sit behind the velvet curtains, it’s as real as it gets.
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