THEATRE & IDENTITY

Santina Traficante is a senior musical theatre major. Santina’s been a  frequent actress in Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center shows—most recently starring as Daria Chase in Holmes For The Holidays. In addition, she will once again be a director in the One-Act Festival, and is a member of The Collective, a pre-professional training academy founded by Broadway actor and faculty member Michael Campayno. 

In this interview, Traficante talks about her fashion sense in the context of the theatre–and how playing different roles can form her fashion identity.

You used to present yourself with a more hyper-feminine aesthetic. I was curious about how the world treated you specifically within the world of musical theatre?

I think people definitely wouldn’t take me as seriously when I expressed my femininity in a more hyper-intensive way. I feel like people see femininity as stupidity, honestly. People wouldn’t take me seriously because of my little mini skirts and stuff like that. And working with professional actors over the summer, I’ve realized I’ll never be taken seriously unless I express other sides of myself.

When did femininity become more prominent in your life?

I started to cling to hyper-femininity when I started to get taller. I felt very masculine, and I don’t have good ideas of what masculinity is in my life, so it’s not something I’m comfortable expressing. So I went into it to sort of overcompensate about what was masculine about myself. But yeah, I was always a little…but it definitely grew over time .

What do you think about microtrends?

I’ve always been into fashion, and there’s been this 20-year rule that trends will come and go every 20 years. They will revive themselves and go out of style. I feel like with microtrends it’s a five-year rule. Things come and go so quickly that I couldn’t even picture myself wearing what I did two years ago.

I don’t know, some [microtrends] are straight-up ugly, but I think people shouldn’t be so quick to say what’s in and out. I’m a huge fan of those black string necklaces, [but] it’s like by the time you see it in a F21, it’s out and nobody wants to wear it. I think you should be able to wear things deemed “out of style.”

How do you feel about the resurgence of heroin chic?

Unfortunately, I think along with fashion, bodies also go in and out of trend, like the 2010s and BBLs. And now we’re in the era of repeating the 2000s. I think people are very nostalgic about everything in the past, and that unfortunately includes that sort of Tumblr aesthetic, with romanticized eating disorders displaying frailness in the name of femininity.

Have you ever experienced a competitive friendship?

Yes, I think for me, being a person so attached to my femininity, any girl that I saw as more feminine than myself, I was immediately threatened by. Any girl that was just confident in expressing herself, I would feel a competitive nature, especially for girls who don’t need to express it and just have it in them. I’m growing more comfortable expressing other sides of my energy, so it’s definitely not as intense.

Growing up, the media always really demonized feminine women like Sharpay, and we see the main guys with their love interests who are always “one of the boys.” I think it made a lot of people spiteful towards femininity.

Did musical theatre give you more confidence in what you wore, or is that something in your identity you always had?

I feel that the element of theatre is performing, every aspect. I always joke with my friends Summer and Chloe that I’m performing at all times. I think that’s a big thing as to why—especially people in musical theatre—are into aesthetics because you’re trying to be a character. Musical theatre has definitely heightened that sort of “type” I am, in terms of typecasting.

I know what I get cast as, and I think that definitely influences how I present myself, dress, and see myself. I definitely think it [deprived] me of a chance to fully get to know myself, as opposed to getting placed in a box. But it’s definitely given me a shape of who I am in other people’s eyes.