dressing outloud
november 13, 2025-february 15, 2026
Opening reception | November 13, 2025 - 4:00-6:00 pm
In some shape or form, costumes tend to speak volumes. In a theatrical production, they provide context for the story unfolding before an audience’s eyes. At a Halloween party, they tell us something about the people wearing them: who’s bold, who’s twisted, and who has a clever sense of humor. And on other stages, they are a crucial element to a performance that feeds our curiosity and excitement. They often say what words can’t.
Dressing Outloud features the work of Meghan Anderson Doyle and Kevin Copenhaver, two costume designers from the Denver Center of the Performing Arts (DCPA). Continuing a trend from a 2022 exhibition with Doyle and Copenhaver at the Experience Gallery, Behind the Curtain, this exhibition includes costumes, renderings and photos that originated from DCPA productions of Hamlet, A Christmas Carol, Frankenstein and Twelfth Night. Like all good stories, though, this show has a twist. Dressing Outloud also showcases Doyle’s bold work from several of Meow Wolf’s Trashion runway shows, Copenhaver’s elaborate burlesque costumes, and the pair’s intricate and frightening zombie costumes.
Throughout the exhibition, digital design students from CU Denver’s College of Arts & Media have created interactive elements that enhance the installed portions of the exhibition. Walk virtually through the costume-making process, go on a scavenger hunt throughout the gallery, take a quiz to find out which costume matches your personality, and play a textile game all without leaving the gallery.
Dressing Outloud is generously supported by the University of Colorado Denver’s College of Arts & Media. The gallery is a partnership between CU Denver and the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts loaned several costumes from past productions to make this exhibition possible.
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Meghan Anderson Doyle
Meghan (she/her) is a freelance costume designer who specializes in design for live theatre. Meghan is currently in her eighteenth season as a Costume Design Associate with the Denver Center for Performing Arts and holds a B.A. in Theatre from the University of Denver along with an M.F.A. in Costume Design and Technology from the University of Florida. She is committed to anti-racism, equitable practices on stage and off, and celebrating her community. As a fourth generation Northsider born and raised on the traditional land of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute People (Colorado), she continues to live in Denver with her wife. She is passionately curious, an avid reader, history nerd, and still wants to be a Muppet when she grows up.
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Kevin Copenhaver
Kevin Copenhaver is an award-winning Costume Designer, Costume Crafts Specialist, and Mask Maker. Kevin has been Costume Crafts Director for the Denver Center since 1990.
He is the recipient of multiple awards for Outstanding Costume Design for shows including Crowns, Sweeny Todd, Animal Crackers, Seascape, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Ex-plorer’s Club, and many others. Kevin received his BFA in Theatre Design from the University of Cincinnati College –Conservatory of Music in 1989. He also graduated in 1993 from il Centro Maschere e Strutture Gestuali in Padua, Italy under the tutelage of world renowned Commedia Dell’Arte teacher Donato Sartori.
When he isn’t working, he can be found spending time with his husband, Kyle – a professional massage therapist and Burlesque artist – and their dogs, Archer and Godric.
