Dylan A. Blussick Bedazzles the Cast of Beloved Musical, at his Hometown Theater
By SHARON EBERSON
At age 23, costume designer, wardrobe supervisor and entrepreneur Dylan A. Blussick’s resume reads like an accomplished retiree’s.
The well-traveled Washington County native boasts extensive National Tour experience that will soon include the Tony Award-winning The Outsiders. But just now, he is proving the Ozian adage that there’s no place like home.
Blussick has been happily creating the principal costumes and “bedazzling the crap” out of the rest for his favorite musical, The Wizard of Oz, at one of his theatrical homes, Little Lake Theatre.
Blussick made his Little Lake debut as an actor, at age 12, but that was not his earliest onstage appearance.
In one of several full-circle moments, he is fulfilling the promise of 5-year-old Dylan, who played the Munchkin Mayor for the Kids Theatre Works Young Actors Studio, which had operated in the basement of the Washington (County) Mall. So obsessed was young Dylan with The Wizard of Oz, he would perform it for friends and neighbors.
“I was Dorothy and everybody, and I had a lion stuffed animal, and we had this really ornate wall decor face on our porch that I would use as the Wizard’s head. I would use my toy playhouse as Dorothy’s house, and I would go around to the neighbors and give them tickets, and set out chairs in our side driveway, and they would all come and see the show. So it really is a full circle moment, and Little Lake has always been a home for me. I think I probably did over 20 shows there when I was growing up,” Blussick recalled, almost in one breath, so excited was he about the prospect of finally putting his stamp on a show that has meant the world to him for so long.
He recently shared with the Little Lake cast that he would have Wizard of Oz themed parties as a child, and his parents would buy him collectibles that he still has, some in storage, some still showcased in his home.
“The Wizard of Oz has been such a huge part of my life. … The story has always been so poignant for me, especially as a gay man. I think this American classic is so beloved and so held close to our hearts for the people in the LGBTQIA+ community. It’s such a safe space, a story for us,” Blussick said.
The Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School alumnus has worked in Pittsburgh in backstage jobs such as costume designer, wardrobe supervisor and stage manager, for Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, Prime Stage Theatre, Riverfront Theatre Company, Stage 62 and Pittsburgh CLO, including on PCLO’s Camelot and the co-production with Kansas City Starlight of Disney’s Frozen.
His work as an assistant wardrobe supervisor includes the National Tour of Disney On Ice’s Into the Magic and the first National Tour of &Juliet, and he will be joining the tour of The Outsiders that is coming to Pittsburgh in April 2027. He also has his own rental business, that includes the original William Ivey Long costumes from Broadway’s Hairspray.
“I have a production of [Hairspray] in Fort Lauderdale right now, and then we’re doing it in Sacramento in the summer. I own Catch Me If You Can as well, and I have that up in White Plains (N.Y.) right now. I own the Madison Square Garden Annie, the Daniel Radcliffe How to Succeed in Business, and Memphis. I started that in between touring, and then was doing rental packages on the side.”
He also created costumes for the North American tour of TINA — The Tina Turner Musical, and has worked on tours including Mrs. Doubtfire, “Where [lead Rob McClure] would do 31 changes every single night.”
Even at his relatively tender age, Blussick’s tenure at Little Lake has spanned four artistic directors, from Sunny Disney Firchett to current AD Patrick Cannon. While performing in Pinkalicious, his first Little Lake production, the director Sara Barbisch recognized the ambitions of then 12-year-old Dylan, and nurtured his interests.
“She let me do a little bit of the props, and the costumes, and stage managing, because at that point, I was still trying to figure out what I wanted,” Blussick recalled. “So between Sarah Barbish and Sunny Disney, who used to run Little Lake, they just let me explore that. And I was continuing to do more shows as an actor there, because at that time, I thought that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
When it was pointed out that most 12-year-olds are not sure what they want to do the next day, Blussick laughed. One thing he did know: Sitting in a classroom was not for him.
At the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, others recognized his growing interest in the creative team side of theater. There was no “technical major” at the time, Blussick said, so one was created for him, working with the technicians that run the Performing Arts Center.
“That was kind of eye-opening for me. I learned lighting design and set design and props and costumes and makeup, but then just gravitated more towards costumes,” he said.
From there, he spent two days — yes, two — at the California University of PA, before he left for another campus: Blussick booked a job on the Netflix show The Chair, starring Sandra Oh, that was filming at Chatham University.
He has reached back to friends made over the course of his Pittsburgh work for help in putting together the wardrobe for The Wizard of Oz.
Blussick explained to the cast that he used his deep knowledge of Oz lore to add touches that non-Ozophiles are sure to miss.
For example, “The [Wicked Witch’s] Winky guards have a standard cape and a black fur pillbox hat kind of thing, but they also have these beautiful antique gold-colored symbols on the front of their capes, and those are actually an homage to the original 1910 book, the W.W. Denslow Illustrations.”
Denslow put images such as a frog, a snake and a moon on the skirt of the Wicked Witch. There’s also an eyeball, because the Witch had one telescopic eye in the L. Frank Baum book.
Blussick has paid homage to the 1939 technicolor movie as well, noting his love for the costumes by one-named designer Adrian.
“For somebody that’s seen the movie over a thousand times, the colors for [Dorothy and the Scarecrow, the Lion and the Tin Man] just make sense. And you try to think, well, what would it look like if Dorothy’s dress was purple? You know what I mean? That blue gingham, that particular shade, and that shade of ruby red go so well together with the blue socks, it’s just so delicious. And then the Scarecrow with the green and the brown, and then that shade of almost taupe/camel for the Lion, and then you just get every little thing.”
The quartet heading down theYellow Brick Road for Little Lake are Alaina Turocy as Dorothy Gale, Cole McGlumphy as the Cowardly Lion, Cole Vecchio as the Tin Man and Timothy Macuski as the Scarecrow. Mairead Roddy plays Miss Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West, with Greta Healy as Aunt Em/Glinda, and Patrick Conner as Professor Chester Marvel and The Wizard of Oz.
All are experiencing Blussick’s attending to detail.
The Lion, for instance, will be decked out in a “big, beautiful fur jacket, where we have widened the collar [as his mane], and he has this caramel … it’s literally a Mongolian curly lamb hair, and it has such great movement and stage presence, and it just floats sometimes. And our wonderful actor, Cole McGlumphy, has this great head of hair and this wonderful beard that just kind of reads Lion to begin with.”
Not to give too much more away, but, with AD Cannon’s enthusiastic blessing, Blussick has been having a ball, putting his own stamp on the iconic outfits.
Greta Healy as Glinda and Mairead Roddy as the Wicked Witch,
in Little Lake Theater’s production of The Wizard of Oz. (Image: Alexis Hawk)
“He really creates an environment that it’s like, you want to explore,” Blussick said. “He’s so open, and he just lets you be an artist, which is very rare sometimes in this industry, to be able to have that freedom to be like, ‘OK, but what if Dorothy’s shoes were a platform tennis shoe that were bedazzled to the nines instead of the ruby slippers that we all know and love?’ ”
Blussick will be back with Pittsburgh CLO, supervising the wardrobe for Mean Girls during the company’s 80th and final summer, before it merges with Pittsburgh Public Theater at the start of next year.
“Having been somebody that grew up seeing all of the CLO summer shows as a kid, I think that was a catalyst, too for my love of this and my love of just seeing beautiful ornate productions on a stage that has always meant so much to me. I mean, the Benedum is where I got my fill of all of this stuff that I now get to do,” Blussick said.
For now, he is in his happy place, in his hometown theater, bedazzling and bewitching the occupants of Little Lake’s land of Oz.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Little Lake Theater’s production of The Wizard of Oz runs April 2-19, 2026, at 500 Lakeside Drive South, Canonsburg, PA. Tickets: https://www.littlelake.org/shows-and-events/our-shows.
Categories: Feature Stories, Our Posts, Show Previews
Leave a Reply Cancel reply