A Change of Wardrobe

Kimberly Wick brings her family’s collection of Broadway costumes into the digital era

Written by TYLER CHILDRESS

It’s lunchtime at The Wick Theatre’s Museum Club, and Kimberly Wick is vibrating at a frequency that seems to put her in several places at once. In one moment, she’s having a quick aside with the wait staff coordinating the luncheon’s first course. Almost simultaneously, she’s onstage in front of a wall-to-wall projection of vibrant pink roses introducing patrons to the immersive dining experience they will soon be enjoying.

And then she’s off again, behind the curtain of Oz to a control room that looks like it could launch satellites, to helm the afternoon’s production.

“It’s a mad puppet game,”says Wick, who pulled the strings for more than a year and a half to convert what was once an exhibit area for some of the Wicks’ 100plus authentic Broadway costumes into the anachronis- in equal measure by nostalgia for the bygone era of jazzy supper clubs and the necessity for evolution. For Wick, the digital medium is “the wave of the future,” and “there’s no avoiding it.” Inspired by the immersive Van Gogh exhibit in Miami, Wick conceived of a way to combine her family’s collection of wardrobes with video content to produce “Ascot,” the Museum Club’s first production.“Ascot”—a movie written by Wick— includes music and commentary from the original production of “My Fair Lady” to create a living exhibit that revels in the magic and history of the Broadway hit.“You’ll leave here knowing more about ‘My Fair Lady’ than you ever thought possible,” says Wick.

Wick has been in the family business of Broadway costumes since she was 13 years old, when she and her sister, Kelly, were the “sidekicks” of their mother tic delight of a Roaring 20s-style supper club surrounded by a digital canvas of projector-screened walls that wrap around the space and take guests on an immersive journey through the history of Wick’s favorite stage production,“My Fair Lady.”

“If it’s our favorite, it must be somebody else’s favorite,” says Wick. Peppered throughout the space are original costumes from the 1956 Tony Award-winning production, including four worn by Julie Andrews in her portrayal of starry-eyed protagonist Eliza Doolittle. “We’re always looking for a unique, fresh way to share the wardrobe that we own,” says Wick, whose family boasts the largest collection of authentic Broadway garb in the country.

The Wick Theatre and Costume Museum made its Boca debut in 2013, when proprietor Marilynn Wick (Kimberly’s mother) took over the former Caldwell Theatre space. Since then, The Wick has become a cultural staple in the community, producing beloved musicals and inviting those with a penchant for theatre to view some of the medium’s most famous costumes. Now, Kimberly is bringing the family’s collection into the digital era with the opening of the Museum Club last October.

The brainchild of Wick, the Museum Club is driven

Marilynn.“My mom was a single parent,” says Wick, “so it was important that my sister and I were right there and secure and safe, and we’ve just always been there at her side.” But that’s not to say that working in a family business isn’t without its challenges, especially when your mom is the boss.

“I’ve been fired and still come to work, and [Marilynn says] ‘I fired you; why are you still here?’And I’m like,‘oh mom, I have too much to do; we’ll talk about it tomorrow,’”says Wick. And with the opening of the Museum Club and The Wick’s 10th anniversary coming up in September, there’s no shortage of work to be done.

“It is hard to believe,” says Wick.“Ten years just seems like a lifetime, but it has gone by in a flash, and it’s because we’re doing what we love.”

While writing, curating and producing the immersive “Ascot” experience pulls Wick in a thousand directions at once, her limitless reserve of passion for Broadway history and attire—and her desire to share that passion with others—makes her work less of a job and more of a labor of love.

“We love the costumes, we love producing the shows, we love making people happy, we love providing a space and a place for people to escape for three hours,” says Wick.“There is a reward in that.”