About

Chalise Ludlow is a costume designer, costume technician, and educator with a passion for theater arts. She is currently an associate professor of costume design and technology at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia.

Since a young age, Chalise has been enthralled by the theater and saw no other career path for her.  At Brigham Young University-Idaho she followed her passion and studied Theatre Education receiving a Bachelor of Science in Theatre/Speech Education with a minor in Spanish in 2005.

Following graduation, she taught acting, film, make-up, technical theatre, set construction, speech, and Spanish at Rigby High School for eight years. During her time at Rigby High School, she also produced, directed, and designed for over 25 shows including eight musicals. Some of those productions included The Scarlet Pimpernel, Oklahoma, Smash, The Beauty and the Beast, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Wit, Peter Pan, The Foreigner, and Rumors. 

She found great joy in adding her own special touch to each production through costume. Some of her favorite costume pieces came from her productions of Peter Pan, A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and Smash.

Though she loved teaching, she found costume design and construction was truly her niche. After 10 years of working in the field of education, she followed her dreams and went back to school to earn her Master of Fine Arts in costume design and production at The University of Alabama.

Her time studying at UA was full of opportunities in design and construction.  She designed costumes for Ghosts, The Philadelphia Story, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.  She also draped for Doubt, A Chorus Line, La Ronde, and August: Osage County.  She enjoyed taking Costume History, Historical Draping, Costume Design, Watercolor, Figure Drawing, Advanced Draping and Patterning, Menswear, and Tailoring.

After leaving UA she had the opportunity to work at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga as a lecturer.  She designed and built for A Doll’s House part Two, Cats, Love and Information, and Tartuffe.  She also taught Introduction to Theatre and Costume Construction and ran the costume shop where all theatre majors were required to do shop hours and learn how to drape and build costumes.

Then in the fall of 2019, she started at Valdosta State University as an Associate Professor of Costume Design and Technology.  She currently teaches Costume Design, Costume Construction, Costume History, Makeup Design, and designs for the six shows that VSU produced yearly.

During this last summer, Chalise enjoyed designing costumes for the Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone, Montana, and researching fabric waste and reduction in the costume shop through the Blazer Summer Research Institute.  When not designing or researching she spends her time enjoying the majestic National Parks and Monuments all over the United States.