The Backstage Heroes of a Festival

‘I remember doing a show at the Festival Theatre and then running to do another one that, for some unknown reason, was somewhere off North Terrace, and then you were running full pelt to another one that was at the Cathedral here on North Terrace that did an opera.

And I just thought, ‘I can’t do this’ – but we did,’ said Jana De Biasi remembering the madness of the pre-covid festival season.

When we watch a show, we’re captivated by the faces on the stages but we don’t always think about those behind the scenes who facilitate wardrobe changes, fix ripped costumes and take care of actors in intermissions.

And we’re likely to give even less thought to the person who hand stitches every strand of hair into the wig on an character head.

Jana De Biasi, the notorious wigmaker of Adelaide walked into the Circulating Library on a Wednesday morning to share her festival stories. She’s wearing a skirt, brown leather boots and has immaculate hair.

Jana first began working as a hairdresser because her cousins were hairdressers. When she completed her apprenticeship, she entered competitions and amateur theatre. Which was her pathway into what would be more than 40 years of working backstage.

‘Somebody approached me and asked me was I interested in doing it professionally, and of course I did, and that’s how it started,’ said Jana.

Before long, Jana was living in Melbourne and working backstage of film sets for shows such as Homicide and Division 4.

In the fast paced city, Jana met a professional wigmaker who once again approached her and offered to share the skill.

She was offered lessons and mentorships to learn the trade but she had to do it in her own time.

This was a slow paced art that required patience and often solitude which Jana didn’t mind at all.

‘It’s like being a tailor, how you make a coat, well, you do exactly the same thing with a wig. You literally measure their heads and you use like a fine net, and you actually make a casing, you know.

You sort of measure every part of their head, and then you weave two hairs at a time into this fine net with a special hook. And that’s how you create a wig. I think a lot of young ones just find it so monotonous, while I find it soothing,’ said Jana.

But working back stage, her duties are not limited to wig-making or even hair and make up. While some bigger companies and projects can have whole backstage team, Jana is often a one woman band.

‘You’ve got to dress, you’ve got to do makeup, you’ve got to do wigs, sometimes you’ve got to do maintenance after the show, and sometimes you’ve got to be confident so they can let their hearts out to you. And you’ve got to listen,’ Jana said.

After decades in the industry working across companies and festivals all over South Australia, Jana speaks of the relationships developed with actors and artists that attend that pass through our city and some local ones too.

‘You do get to know them after a while, especially if they’re South Australian and they were in a few shows.

You go through the things of when they meet a boyfriend and they get married and they have a child. They’re like your own kids. So having one child probably wasn’t too bad because I accumulated other children as well, even though I don’t have to pay for them,’ Jana laughed.

Rather than the glamourous, champagne drinking, rubbing of shoulders with celebrities during intermission that I once thought was backstage work, Jana’s evenings are filled with fixing busted zips or gaffer taping soles of shoes during intermissions and reminding actors to do up their flies.

Still, Jana said she would rather people didn’t know about all the magic and mess that happens backstage to make sure that the show goes on.

‘If everybody found out what you were doing backstage, I think it would lose all that excitement of seeing what’s on stage,’ said Jana.

The festival season has always been a source of excitement for Jana, but during the pandemic and it’s inevitable effects on the arts, she laments the opportunities lost her colleagues, many of whom had to leave the industry for more stable work.

After seeing the festivals of South Australia grow over many years, Jana is convinced that we’ll bounce back and rebuild, perhaps we have already begun.

‘I think Adelaide, people underestimate Adelaide, you know. We always get people having little digs at our state, but, you know, really and truly, we’ve got an amazing state.

I think we should be damn proud of it, I reckon, the things that happen here,’ said Jana.

 
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This article is part of the Festival City Stories series, a collection of reflections about Adelaide made by the people who make this a festival place. The project was funded through the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Arts South Australia, Arts Recovery Fund, and delivered in partnership with the State Library of South Australia. 

Written by: Manal Younus

Photography by: Thomas McCammon