Longwood University
03/19/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/19/2026 15:18
Alumna has a hair-raising job with Washington National Opera
Yak hair, cashmere or human hair?
Chances are that question is routine only for Samantha Wootten '00 and others working in the same career.
Wootten is a wig master, the person responsible for designing, creating, fitting, styling and maintaining wigs, hairpieces and facial hair for theatre and opera productions.
Over the last 24 years, she has put her somewhat unusual skills to work for several theatre and opera companies, including the Washington National Opera (WNO), where she currently works, and the Los Angeles Opera -both considered top 10 U.S. opera companies.
She loves her work, but it's not exactly what she had in mind when she came to Longwood. She initially dreamed of becoming an actor, but it quickly became clear that wasn't the perfect role for her. Wootten said Longwood's theatre program at that time was "very actor-centric," so she found other ways to remain involved in Longwood theatre.
"I loved the process of it and the people. I looked for a niche," she said. "I built sets. I did costumes. I did hair and makeup."
Wootten also switched her major to English, thinking she would become a teacher. During her student teaching, her roommate saw a poster for a hair and makeup design program at the University of Cincinnati and encouraged her to apply.
"I told her they were never going to talk to me," said Wootten-but they did. She earned her master's degree in theatrical design and production from Cincinnati in 2002 and immediately landed a position as wig master with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
That's when her real education in the day-to-day challenges of creating wigs and other hairpieces for performers began-and it didn't have anything to do with yak hair vs. human hair. Or with the 60 to 80 hours of tying hairs one by one onto a lace cap, which is what it takes to make just one full wig.
"The biggest challenge was people skills," said Wootten. "One thing you have to understand about hair and makeup is that it's incredibly personal. The second thing is that you're trying to make a lot of people happy.
"How do you make your performers feel safe? How do you make the director and the designer feel heard and still produce an authentic look that keeps everybody feeling solid? That's a huge part of the job," she said. "Even now, after so many years, there are definitely scenarios that are sticky, and you just do the best you can."
Wootten added that the courses she took for her special education minor at Longwood helped her navigate that aspect of the job.
There were a lot of elements in my special education minor that I've taken forward. You slow things down. You look for ways to communicate so that people feel safe and that they can understand.
Samantha Wootten '00"There were a lot of elements in my special education minor that I've taken forward. You slow things down. You look for ways to communicate so that people feel safe and that they can understand. Those techniques can help you navigate what can be a highly emotional moment."
As to her own emotions, Wootten finds joy and fulfillment in helping bring characters to life through the creativity of wig design. Her favorite creative challenge so far was a production of The Ghosts of Versailles staged by the Glimmerglass Festival, an opera company in Cooperstown, New York. The opera is set in an afterlife existence of the Versailles court of Louis XVI. In order to cheer up the ghost of Marie Antoinette, who is upset about having been beheaded, the ghost of the playwright Beaumarchais stages an opera.
"It spans multiple time periods, and it challenged me to think outside the box a lot. The elite female in the opera is Marie Antoinette, which makes it fun," said Wootten. "They were made of yak hair, which is something we use frequently, especially if we're making a white wig or need white for aging. It's a thicker texture but responds in the same way to heat and styling as human hair."
Wootten prefers to work with natural hair-most often human hair, though cashmere and mohair, which come from specific breeds of goats, also work well in some cases. And sometimes synthetic hair is best, especially for wigs that are "super structural and crazy," she said. "It just depends on what's needed for the particular show."
And why not use the performers' own hair? "It takes more time and effort to style someone's own hair than a wig. I can style and put a wig on someone in 15 minutes."
At this writing, Wootten was immersed in creating dozens of wigs for the Washington National Opera's spring 2026 schedule: Treemonisha, based on an unfinished opera by Scott Joplin, which will have an all-Black cast; The Crucible, where both men and women will be wigged; and West Side Story.
"For me, the opera allows me to do more. It has a lot more freedom from a design perspective than other theatrical genres," Wootten said, "but there's a basic tenet of wig making that she keeps top of mind."
"I got told early on that you never want your wigs to get mentioned in reviews-unless they are extremely exaggerated in some way. The audience is just supposed to see people on stage telling a story."
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