For Brittany Graham, costumes are more than clothing — they are a way to tell a story. 

As the assistant costume shop manager in the Department of Theater Arts at Pitt, Graham has built a career around helping characters come to life, whether on stage or on screen. Since arriving at the University in December 2021, she has become a steady presence in Pitt’s costume shop, balancing intricate designs, student mentorship and a freelance design career that stretches well beyond campus.

“I love my job,” Graham said. “Every new project is a new challenge. It kind of tickles all the places in my brain that I like.”

Finding her way to Pitt

Graham found her love of theater in high school, where she was president of the drama club. She earned her bachelor’s degree in theater from the University of Maryland in 2008, where she initially focused on acting. But it wasn’t until she began working in the costume shop to fulfill course requirements that she discovered her love for costume design.

“I already knew how to sew, and I was always interested in clothes and fashion and how they tell a story,” Graham said. “I just didn’t know it was a career.”

Graham graduated as the global financial crisis disrupted the art industries across the country, entering a job market where theaters were cutting costs and limiting new hires. Facing fewer opportunities in acting, she chose to focus on design — a decision that would shape the rest of her career.

After a period of working freelance jobs in theater and film, she earned her Master’s of Fine Arts in costume design from the University of Wisconsin in 2018. At this point, Graham realized she was drawn to academia. 

“I really enjoy working with students and helping foster the next generation of people,” Graham said. 

While working on the independent film “Unsinkable,” Graham and her husband moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh because the job required her to spend about half the year in the City. With family nearby and her husband working remotely, Graham said the move felt practical.

“My husband asked, ‘Why are we in Philly if you’re always in Pittsburgh?’ So we moved here, and now it’s my fourth year here,” Graham said.

Graham described “Unsinkable” as an important moment in her career. The film follows the political intrigue and drama after the sinking of the Titanic. Graham worked on the project for five years, and it was the first feature-length film she designed. 

“It was pretty epic,” Graham said. 

Shortly after relocating – and while pregnant with her first child – Graham sought more stable work, joining Pitt’s costume shop in the 2022 fall semester.

Living with endometriosis

Graham is also open about that more personal part of her story — her diagnosis with endometriosis, a chronic condition affecting roughly one in eight people with uteruses.

For years, she experienced what she eventually realized was chronic pain, assuming it was normal. She wasn’t officially diagnosed until she struggled to become pregnant.

“Turns out I had textbook endometriosis my whole life,” Graham said. “To find out that I was struggling not because of personal failure, but because your body doesn’t work the way that it should, was such a relief.”

Looking back, she said the condition did affect her life and work — though she didn’t recognize it at the time.

“You’re in pain all the time,” Graham said. “But I didn’t know that wasn’t normal.”

She was diagnosed while seeking treatment for infertility, a process she said had a more direct impact on her career due to the time required for medical appointments.

In June 2021, she underwent excision surgery, considered the gold-standard treatment for endometriosis. The procedure was “life changing”. She became pregnant shortly after and now has two children, including a baby born this past October.

Graham speaks openly about the condition because, she said, it remains widely misunderstood and under taught in medical education.

“It’s so common, and yet it’s not something that people talk about,” Graham said. “A lot about [endometriosis] is misunderstood, but it is better than it used to be. People are talking about it more.”

Mentorship and freelance designs

As the costume shop assistant manager, Graham mentors theater students completing shop hours for their degree requirements, managing costume stock and serving as a draper and tailor for University productions. 

For Pitt Stages’ production of the play “As You Like It” last spring, Graham’s primary costume design was a blue velvet gown featuring several cage-style costume elements. This show required many of the pieces to be made from scratch, while more modern shows require mostly pulled and altered garments, according to Graham. 

Graham continues to do freelance work through her business, Brittany Graham Designs. Last summer, she worked as a background fitter on an upcoming feature film, which required her to create period costumes ranging from 1850 to 1917 for hundreds of background characters. 

“I was one of about five people fitting background,” Graham said. “It was really fun, and really crazy, costume-wise.”

Graham said she’s excited to watch the finished product without the pressure she feels when she leads design.

“As a designer, [leading the design project is] a little more stressful because I see everything that went wrong,” Graham said. “But for [the feature film], I think it’ll just be fun.”

Graham also recently worked on an Olympics commercial for Canadian hockey featuring Pittsburgh Penguins player Sidney Crosby.

She has also participated several times in the Pittsburgh 48 Hour Film Project, a competition in which teams write, shoot and edit a short film in two days.

Much of Graham’s work is rooted in researching her designs. Whether designing for stage or screen, Graham said she immerses herself in the context of a script.

“It’s really important to know where the character is coming from socially, economically and just in the world in general,” Graham said. “Then you can show their arc through color, silhouette and texture.”

For Graham, the appeal isn’t just in what she’s made, but in what comes next.

“I like that it’s always something new,” Graham said. “I’m not someone who can work a typical office job.”