Barb Kalina marks 25 years as St. Joe's costume designer, making kids' comfort her priority

When Barb Kalina began lending a hand with St. Joseph High School’s theater program in 1997, she spent a week washing and ironing 40 white aprons for the production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“That was my entire duty,” said Kalina, a Lower Burrell resident and retired reading specialist from the New Kensington-Arnold School District.

Fast forward nearly three decades.

Kalina’s eye for detail has become essential to the aesthetics of every show, from the mystical pieces in “Into the Woods” to the whimsical “Godspell.”

“I love the design phase,” said Kalina, who learned to sew in home economics class at the former Arnold High School.

“When I tell people what we’re gonna do, they make faces in disbelief.”

When students hit the stage with “Shrek” in 2014, Kalina got an especially creative itch and decided to latch hook the comedic Donkey.

When the school performed “Seussical” a year earlier, Kalina found inspiration from the altar poinsettias at church to create the show’s Whoville characters.

“It was my favorite thing we’ve ever done,” she said. “Usually those characters are in yellow, but we wanted to go silly. We had checks and stripes and polka dots. The kids looked fabulous and we had so much fun.”

Recent graduate Kylie Krzewinski, 17, formed a lasting relationship with Kalina years ago during the production of “Children of Eden.”

“I remember walking into the costume room as a young kid and being amazed,” Krzewinski said. “It’s like a candy store. The things that she comes up with are bonkers.”

This year, for “Tarzan,” Kalina brainstormed gorilla costumes from ripped and rolled T-shirts. She and a bevy of volunteers hot-glued cotton strips from 1,200 shirts to make the furry bodies and wigs.

“I couldn’t do it without the moms,” she said. “We work hard because the kids can’t be their best unless they feel good.”

Kalina’s innovation earned the school a Gene Kelly Award for Best Costume at the May ceremony. It was Kalina’s 14th nomination and sixth win in 25 years.

An Arnold native, Kalina is a proud graduate of Arnold High School.

“I was in their last class in 1967,” she said.

Her passion for education led her to a 35-year stint at New Kensington-Arnold. After retirement, she changed gears and tried something just for fun, working part time at Costume World in Pittsburgh’s Strip District for 12 years.

“They just threw me in, and I learned as I went,” Kalina said.

She drew inspiration from that gig and parlayed it into her stretch at St. Joe’s, always crafting big storylines through her costume designs.

Named costume designer in 1999 with “Cinderella,” Kalina says she “dragged my husband along to do the sets.”

She has built a stock of thousands of costumes, which are crammed into a basement room of the Sci-Tech Center at the school’s Harrison campus.

“For years, we moved around from the synagogue in New Ken to St. Lad’s in Natrona,” she said.

“When they gave us these rooms as our own in 2008, it was heaven.”

Of the myriad costumes, Kalina said her designs have graced stages across the tri-state region.

She lends them freely to other schools in need, including in recent years to Valley and Apollo-Ridge.

“Shrek’s been halfway to Philadelphia and all over Ohio,” she said with a laugh.

Sophomore Sean Wolfe, 15, landed the lead role of Tarzan this spring — a character completely outside his comfort zone.

“I was kind of scared, but Mrs. Kalina’s priority was that I was comfortable,” Wolfe said.

“She’s on our side.”