Wichita State senior Shelby Clemens will head to Washington D.C. in April to display her work on costumes in WSU’s rendition of Molière’s comedy play, “The Learned Ladies.”

Her costume designs won first place at the regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF), and will be placed against the best of the best from around the country at the national competition.

Clemens, who is majoring in theater design and technology, has participated in the competition for three consecutive years with Milta Ortiz’s “Fleeing Blue,” George Bernard Shaw’s “Arms and the Man” and “The Learned Ladies.”

“It was a pretty big deal, because this was the second year in a row we’ve won for costumes,” Clemens said.

The competition was held over the course of a week in Lincoln, Neb.

Clemens displayed painted versions of her costume designs along with photographs of the finished costumes and gave a brief presentation about the designs.

The week culminated with a costume parade that featured competitors’ designs followed by the awards ceremony.

From an outsider’s perspective, creating an entire set of costumes for a play can seem intimidating and impossible, but Clemens has been participating in theater since high school.

Still, she says there are some challenges left to overcome.

“I think the most challenging part of creating costumes for a play is creating a design that works with the character, since there are so many options that may work with the time period, but not always the character,” she said.

For the most part Clemens sticks to costume design, but has also worked on props for “Crazy for You.”

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which hosted the competition, is one of the schools Clemens is considering for graduate school. She is also looking at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Right now,” she said, “I am mainly working in the costume shop and getting ready to graduate.”