Costume Rentals

If you're interested in renting costumes for a production,
please email:

Moonyean Field
at
m.field@operahouseplayers.org

Costume Gallery

The Lady and the Leopard History

Solveig Pflueger was born in Iowa and lived in West Suffield, CT, for the last 20 years of her life. She received both a PhD in linguistics and an MD from The University of Texas. She worked as a cytogeneticist and pathologist at Baystate Medical Center. Solveig bred and rescued cats, was a judge at cat shows, and was the chairman of the International Cat Association genetics committee.

Solveig started getting involved in costuming when her children were young. This interest morphed into providing costumes for schools and community theaters so that they could have access to quality costumes at affordable prices. During that time, she also started selling costume pieces at Renaissance fairs and used the profits to buy more theatrical costumes. She named her collection The Lady and the Leopard in honor of her love of cats. She costumed Once Upon a Mattress (2006) and Piecemeal (2008) for Opera House Players when we were located at the Broad Brook Opera House.

As her house became overrun with costumes, she decided to rent a 1,000 sq ft warehouse. At this point, Moonyean Field became involved and OHP started using costumes from the warehouse for most of our shows. Moonyean began putting costumes into categories and Solveig continued growing the collection.

It became apparent that 1,000 sq ft wasn’t going to house her collection, so she decided to expand to 5,300 sq ft. She managed to fill the entire warehouse! When Solveig died in 2014, she left the business to her son, Haldan, and Moonyean took over managing the warehouse. It continued to be a valuable resource for high schools and community theaters across New England.

In late 2023, Haldan offered the costume collection to OHP, and we decided it was an opportunity we had to seize. We felt that it would be best for the organization to move the warehouse from Chicopee, MA, to Enfield, CT, OHP's hometown. We knew that moving a 5,300 sq. ft. warehouse full of costumes was an enormous undertaking, but an important one.

Over the course of a few months, over 50 volunteers lent their time and energy loading and unloading moving trucks full of bins, disassembling and re-assembling clothing racks, and hanging costumes. It took many hours of hard work to bring the majority of the collection to the Enfield warehouse. With the deadline approaching, we hired a moving company to complete the move. With the help of so many volunteers, we were able to cut the initial professional moving quote in half! This was a huge savings, and we are extremely grateful to all the volunteers who made it happen.

Follow The Lady and the Leopard Costume Collection on Facebook! We rent costumes to groups throughout New England for a variety of costume needs. The warehouse is run by volunteers! If you’re interested in getting involved, please get in touch with Moonyean Field at m.field@operahouseplayers.org.

Solveig was a kind, generous, intelligent, and fascinating person. She helped so many people in the theater community with their costuming needs. Her spunky, artistic spirit is deeply missed. We are honored to continue her legacy.