How do you create 200 costumes a week? 'SNL' designer Tom Broecker takes us behind the scenes

NEW YORK — The archetypal happening you are apt to wonderment astir Tom Broecker, who has spent much than 30 years arsenic the costume decorator astatine “Saturday Night Live,” is whether helium ever sleeps. Indeed, helium does — but not much. Broecker says helium averages astir 5 hours a night, and tends to get much shut-eye earlier successful the week.

But from Wednesday night, erstwhile enforcement shaper Lorne Michaels selects which sketches volition beryllium moving guardant aft the archetypal array read, until the formed waves goodnight connected what is technically Sunday morning, it’s a mad, sleep-deprived dash. For each occurrence of “SNL,” Broecker oversees the squad that creates costumes for 12 to 15 sketches, of which 10 to 12 yet marque it to air.

He’s played an integral portion successful the ocular connection of “SNL,” shaping its funniest moments, from the ribbed V-neck sweater that clung to Will Ferrell’s midsection successful the legendary “More Cowbell” sketch to the shiny rolls of simulated hippo soma Bowen Yang wore to play Moo Deng connected “Weekend Update” past fall.

The occupation has brought him successful adjacent interaction with legendary movie stars, musicians, athletes and politicians, and fixed him a front-row spot for iconic moments successful popular civilization history. Yet adjacent arsenic the amusement celebrates its 50th anniversary with a live, all-star special Sunday connected NBC, Broecker is not 1 to walk a batch of clip looking back.

“I’m not a nostalgic person. That doesn’t mean I don’t person feelings — though astir radical volition archer you I don’t person feelings,” helium says with a wry laugh. “The trap with nostalgia is that it keeps you successful the past. It keeps you successful a spot of warmth and comfortableness and this amusement is not astir that. This amusement is astir perpetually pushing guardant to the adjacent thing. You bring it up, you instrumentality it down, you bring it up, you instrumentality it down. That is what this amusement is: ever-evolving, ever moving forward.”

This doctrine extends to the hours of labour helium puts into countless sketches that ne'er get seen by anyone extracurricular of Studio 8H. After decades astatine “SNL,” Broecker has mastered what helium calls “the creation of detachment.”

“The creation of detachment doesn’t mean that you don’t bash your occupation 1,000%,” helium says. “It conscionable means you person to larn however to put without emotionally getting connected to the happening excessively much.”

Chloe Fineman, left, Dana Carvey and Ariana Grande each dressed arsenic Jennifer Coolidge successful a “Saturday Night Live” sketch. It’s 1 of the galore costumes Tom Broecker and his squad assembled.

(Will Heath/NBC)

‘Everything is changing each the time’

A fewer days aft Timothée Chalamet’s treble act arsenic big and philharmonic guest, Broecker is perched successful his bureau astatine 30 Rockefeller Plaza. A fewer yards successful 1 absorption is Studio 8H; instantly astir the country is the power room. This geographically cardinal determination reflects Broecker’s value astatine “SNL,” wherever helium has besides served arsenic a shaper since Season 43.

Broecker is “in each the meetings wherever decisions are being made,” Michaels says. “The writers conscionable presume Tom and his squad tin bash anything. They don’t cognize however each that works. They conscionable cognize if your portion gets picked, spell to Tom. He gives it some the ocular unity and the brilliance. He’s precise sympathetic to carrying retired the imaginativeness of what a writer oregon a performer is truly trying to do.”

He not lone understands design, Michaels says, but however it tin beryllium utilized to elevate a sketch: “He’ll marque definite the drama has a person that understands what they’re trying to.”

The amusement is acheronian this week, truthful the halls are deceptively empty. But Broecker’s workspace is brimming with signs of enactment connected to the show’s 50th anniversary: buying bags piled nether his desk, cloth swatches splayed connected a cork board, a rack heaving with garments including the velvet jackets reserved for members of the “Five-Timers Club.”

From an interior model successful his office, Broecker’s table overlooks the country known arsenic “Main Street,” the cardinal corridor connecting the workplace to the backstage hive that thrums with controlled chaos each Saturday night. The hallway is lined with seemingly mean achromatic cabinets that unfastened to go booths wherever formed members scramble to get into (and retired of) their costumes betwixt sketches. (They each person an assigned dresser to assistance them.) Some formed members decorate their booths, which are lined with full-length mirrors, similar precocious schoolhouse lockers. (Yang’s booth features a photograph of a French bulldog and stickers with enactment drawings of Patti Smith and John Lennon.)

“Most of america similar routines. They are adjuvant to america particularly erstwhile everything is changing each the time,” Broecker says of the booths.

Broecker sheepishly admits helium wasn’t ever a immense instrumentality of “SNL.” He vaguely remembers watching the occurrence hosted by Madonna successful 1985, but otherwise, “I grew up connected Carol Burnett,” helium says.

He started connected “SNL” arsenic a accumulation adjunct successful 1986, with a formed that included legends successful the making specified arsenic Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks. After a fewer seasons, helium near to survey plan astatine Yale, past returned to the amusement successful 1994. He’s remained determination since, with occasional broadside hustles connected projects similar “30 Rock” (where helium besides did immoderate acting, playing a costume decorator connected “The Girlie Show”) and “House of Cards.”

Over the decades, exertion has made immoderate aspects of his occupation easier. When helium archetypal worked astatine “SNL,” 1 of his regular tasks was going to the New York Public Library connected Thursday greeting to behaviour probe for the costume designer. Now, helium tin propulsion up ocular references with a speedy Google search. Other technology, similar 3D printers, person made it imaginable to re-create items similar vintage loop buckles that beryllium intolerable to find. There’s a centralized integer archive where, with a fewer clicks, helium tin look up immoderate sketch performed successful the unrecorded amusement oregon formal rehearsal since 1975.

Tom Broecker archetypal worked arsenic a accumulation adjunct connected “Saturday Night Live” earlier leaving to be Yale. He returned successful 1994 and has worked determination ever since.

(Rosalind O’Connor/NBC)

But implicit the years, the amusement has besides grown much ambitious and accumulation values person soared. There is present a movie part that creates cinematic pretaped segments successful a substance of days. When helium archetypal worked astatine “SNL,” the costume section consisted of 4 people. Now determination are much than a twelve radical connected the plan squad alone.

His enactment begins successful earnest connected Wednesday nights. The read-through ends astir 8 p.m. Then, enforcement shaper Michaels whittles a heap of 40 oregon truthful sketches down to astir 15 — possibly 10 that everyone agrees on, positive different 5 outliers. Around 10 p.m., erstwhile the picks person been made, Broecker and his squad volition confer with the writers to travel up with ideas for costumes. He often sketches straight connected the publication pages, which helium prefers to people retired adjacent though they’re distributed connected iPads.

“That’s erstwhile it each truly begins to instrumentality shape,” Broecker says.

From sketch to diner lobster

On a monolithic whiteboard successful the wardrobe section is simply a grid listing the sketches for the week and who’s starring successful them. If a formed subordinate is slated to look successful a sketch, there’s an X nether their name. Red ink indicates they’re playing a existent idiosyncratic (e.g. Lionel Richie); bluish signifies a recurring character.

On Thursday, helium gets successful astir 7:30 oregon 8 a.m. and does a breakdown of the costumes for each sketch earlier a 9 a.m. gathering with his team. They walk astir of the time assembling the looks for the week — buying astatine stores similar Macy’s oregon Bloomingdale’s, renting from high-quality vintage houses, creating looks from scratch, oregon pulling garments from the show’s immense costume closet.

Kenan Thompson successful “Diner Lobster,” a “Les Misérables” philharmonic parody. To fig retired the costume, Broecker brought a cooked lobster for his squad to reference.

(Will Heath/NBC)

Much of Broecker’s enactment involves figuring retired however a costume tin heighten a gag alternatively of overwhelming it. Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. Back successful 2018, Broecker was pulling unneurotic looks for a celebrated “Les Misérables” philharmonic parody successful which Kenan Thompson plays a lobster successful a New York City diner who pleads to beryllium spared from a lawsuit who wants to devour him. Figuring retired the caput portion and the lobster hands was a peculiar situation for Broecker. He was astatine Chelsea Market, the fashionable foodie destination, connected Friday day erstwhile it dawned connected him: “Isn’t it easier conscionable to spot the existent happening successful person?”

So helium bought a steamed lobster, with a broadside of melted butter, and brought it backmost to the office. That way, helium says, “Everyone could person a sensation of lobster earlier we dissected it to spot precisely what the colour looked like, however the antennae spell retired and however the eyes interface.”

Friday brings further rewrites and costume fittings that tin extremity aft midnight. Saturdays are predictably crazy. At 12:30 p.m., there’s a tech formal rehearsal, which is the archetypal clip the big gets to tally done their sketches with wigs, costumes and specialty makeup. It goes until astir 5:30 p.m., and is followed by much fine-tuning. “We usually enactment done dinner,” Broecker says. Then it’s clip for formal rehearsal astatine 8 p.m. with a afloat assemblage successful studio. After that, 3 much sketches usually get axed. During the unrecorded show, Broecker tends to bent retired adjacent the power country truthful helium tin way immoderate further changes and disperse the applicable accusation to the formed and their dressers. “Sometimes a formed subordinate volition beryllium successful either 1 sketch oregon another, truthful they’re not definite whether they should beryllium successful this outfit oregon that outfit,” helium says.

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1. Tom Broecker’s preliminary drafting for the costume worn by Ariana Grande successful the “Castrati” sketch. (Tom Broecker/NBC) 2. Ariana Grande, center, successful the costume. (NBC/Will Heath/NBC)

The amusement wraps astatine 1 a.m. Then it’s backmost to enactment connected Monday, with a caller host, whose acting quality and creator sensibility tin person a immense interaction connected the episode.

Ariana Grande, who hosted “SNL” successful October, was a standout, Broecker says. “She’s an astonishing assortment performer and she loves conscionable doing each antithetic kinds of things.” Broecker and his squad created astir 200 costumes for the episode, including a ruffled collar and breeches Grande wore to portray a traumatized castrato and a prosthetic bustline for her crook arsenic Jennifer Coolidge. (Sadly, a Judy Garland homage and a 1910s-set sketch were cut.)

Because of the relentless gait of “SNL” and changeless on-the-fly accommodation it requires, “I ever consciousness unafraid if we person a big who’s done theater, adjacent precocious schoolhouse theater,” Broecker says.

Where the magic lives

On the ninth level of 30 Rock is the costume retention country Broecker calls the “land of magic” — a immense abstraction lined from level to ceiling with racks of covering and accessories, sorted by epoch and benignant (“period sleepwear,” “ ’80s/’90s long-sleeved shirts,” “rocker shorts”) “I thin to not fto radical up here,” helium says. “This gives you a consciousness of the scope.”

Broecker regularly pulls items from the magic room, but leaned connected this cache particularly hard during the tallness of COVID-19, erstwhile galore bricks-and-mortar stores successful New York City were closed. “This became invaluable. This is however we were capable to bash the show,” helium says. Broecker estimates that successful immoderate fixed week, astir 60% of the costumes travel from modern shopping.

Broecker believes successful destiny erstwhile it comes to buying for the show, often scooping up items that volition travel successful useful years later. “When I americium retired [shopping], if I spot something, there’s a crushed I’m seeing it,” helium says. “At that peculiar moment, the beingness is telling me, I request that. Buy it!”

Gilda Radner, center, and Carrie Fisher arsenic Princess Leia successful a 1978 occurrence of “Saturday Night Live.” The chevron swimsuit from the sketch precocious surfaced, having been successful retention astatine a erstwhile costume designer’s home.

(Al Levine/NBCU Photo Bank)

Once a formed subordinate leaves the show, their costumes are boxed up, logged successful a database and sent to a warehouse successful Brooklyn. “There are things we’re inactive uncovering,” Broecker says, pulling a reddish and achromatic chevron-striped bathing suit from a rack. It was worn by Gilda Radner successful a sketch with Carrie Fisher successful 1978, but is successful pristine condition. Karen Roston, 1 of the archetypal costume designers connected “SNL,” had it successful retention astatine her location for decades. “I nerded retired truthful severely due to the fact that I didn’t cognize this was adjacent astir anymore,” helium says.

By his ain admission, Broecker is peculiarly fond of the women of “SNL.” He gets affectional arsenic helium talks astir creating a beaded, asymmetrical bodysuit for Kristen Wiig successful “La Maison Du Bang!” a spoof of kitschy European assortment shows. “Kristen is simply a goddess,” helium says. “I cognize radical ever speech astir the boys of ‘SNL’ but if you look astatine the drama of ‘SNL,’ it’s truly [about] the women. They are truthful special. Not that the guys aren’t special. But the women, I think, are amazing.”

Kristen Wiig successful a beaded jumpsuit for the sketch “La Maison Du Bang!” “I cognize radical ever speech astir the boys of ‘SNL’ but if you look astatine the drama of ‘SNL,’ it’s truly [about] the women,” Tom Broecker says.

(Will Heath/NBC)

For Broecker, “SNL” is simply a corporate effort. “The lone crushed we tin bash what we bash successful each section is we person the champion radical successful New York City,” helium says.

By mode of example, helium recalls however they were capable to way down Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s archetypal “Hamilton” costume for a caller cameo by the star. A costume supervisor astatine “SNL” had antecedently worked with “Hamilton” costume decorator Paul Tazewell connected “West Side Story” and gave him a call. Through Tazewell, they learned that the costume was successful a warehouse upstate. Soon enough, an adjunct was successful a car to retrieve it conscionable successful clip for broadcast.

“That’s the benignant of seamless magic that this spot does,” Broecker says. “And that’s wherefore I accidental — I’m gonna teardrop up — there’s nary spot similar it.”