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Costume designer Sarah Bahr in her grandmother’s colorful blouse. Photo by Blake Nellis.

The vibrant yellow background of the headshot catches the eye immediately, but it is the vintage blouse that holds the real story.

Passed down from a grandmother who fiercely championed her pursuit of the arts, the garment is a wearable talisman for costume and scenic designer Sarah Bahr.

“I like to keep her memory around,” Sarah said.

Sarah has charted a creative journey that has come full circle in Minnesota.

That journey hits a major milestone with the world premiere this month by the Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis of The 12 Kinds of Ice, a memory musical based on Ellen Bryan Obed’s charming 2012 children’s book.

For Sarah, who is designing the costumes, the project feels intimately bound to her own DNA.
Growing up in rural Minnesota, creativity wasn’t a career track for Sarah; it was simply a lifestyle. With a mother who quilted and a handyman father who literally built the family home, Sarah and her sister spent their childhood painting, inventing make-believe games and embracing the elements.

“I didn’t think of that as being a creative person,” she reflects. “I thought that’s just how you are.”
Initially entering the University of Minnesota Morris with an eye toward fashion design, a chance suggestion altered her path forever: “Oh, you know how to sew? You should go check out the theater department.”

Stepping into the costume shop opened Sarah’s eyes to the collaborative power of theatrical storytelling. Seeking a rigorous environment, she transferred to the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD), earning her BFA in design and technical theater.

UMD operated with the intense focus of a conservatory program tucked inside a state school, surrounded by a city that deeply championed the arts. It proved to be the perfect launching pad.

Navigating the theater industry as a young artist is notoriously difficult, but Sarah’s technical mastery — honed since she first learned to sew at age four — set her apart. Early internships at the Guthrie Theater and two summers building costumes as a stitcher for the Santa Fe Opera landed her a prized entry-level role with the Minnesota Opera right out of college.

Ready for a larger stage, she moved to New York City, where she built costumes for Broadway productions and worked as a fabric shopper for Santa Fe Opera.

Eventually, she joined the staff at New York University’s graduate costume shop, supervising wardrobes and technical builds. Mentoring NYU’s graduate students sparked a revelation.

“It got me thinking that I actually am a designer, and I should be creating theater, not just making clothes for theater,” she says.

Craving the tightly knit arts community and natural landscapes of her home state, she returned to the Twin Cities. She assisted prominent local designers, went back to grad school for costume and scenic design, and built a successful freelance and adjunct teaching career across institutions like Macalester and Augsburg.

When the opportunity arose to design the world premiere of The 12 Kinds of Ice, Sarah didn’t just see a script; she saw her own childhood.

Set in Northern Maine but deeply resonant with the Minnesota winter landscape, the story captures the magic of outdoor ice skating, backyard rink and family bonds.

Working closely with the director and scenic designer over the summer, Sarah devised a strategic color palette to contrast with the minimalist, gray winter landscape of the stage set.
Because it is a memory play where the characters remain in a single, lived-in costume throughout the show, every textile choice carries profound weight.

The protagonist, Ellen, looking back on her youth, wears a sweater dyed in a rich shade of winter sunset tones. Her father is clothed in grounded nature colors — greens, browns and blues — and sports authentic touchstones of local life, including faux fur trapper hats and deerskin leather chopper mittens.

Even the footwear nods to winter sports, with Ellen’s cream-colored boots evoking figure skates and the father’s black boots mirroring hockey skates.

To make these pieces structurally durable enough to survive a full local run and a subsequent tour to the Seattle Children’s Theater in January, Sarah sourced them online from platforms like Etsy, Poshmark and eBay.

The clothes were then passed through a craft and dye shop to be artificially aged.

“They can make the father’s pants look like they’ve been work pants for 20 years,” she notes, pulling back the curtain on a hidden theatrical art.

For Sarah, the joy of the work lies in this deep, collaborative puzzle, balanced by her love of teaching future artists to find sustainability in their passion.

She remains eager to share this cozy, nostalgic world with audiences.

“I love working on new works,” Sarah says. “Because it’s like I’m the first person to visualize it.”

Twelve Kinds of Ice runs Oct. 13-Nov 22 in he 300-seat Cargill Stage at Children’s Theatre Company, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis. See childrenstheatre.org for tickets.