Wigs and Make-Up along with the Costumes are extremely important for the transformation of a human into a train. The German production has extensive facilities on-site that are open to the fans once a year at the Open Day, allowing the process to be public.
London Production[]
The original production was extremely experimental throughout the early years, without a fixed makeup design for many characters. Each actor found their own design throughout the course of their run.
The London production used wigs for the Coaches, Electra, Greaseball, Flat-Top, Wrench, Joule, Volta, and occasionally Purse.
Bochum Production[]
The German production uses wigs for the Coaches, Greaseball, Electra, Joule, Volta, and occasionally Rusty, Poppa and Wrench.
Every performer wears full stage makeup, this is because under bright stage lighting, the face would bleach out and expressions become unreadable. Almost all characters wear a double eyeliner, with the space between filled in white. this is a common theatrical makeup trick to make the eyes seem larger and more expressive onstage.
Martin Manneck (who started working at StEx in 1988!) and his team are responsible for hair and make-up, as well as the copyright for it.
Making of the Wigs[]
To make sure the wigs and hats fit perfectly, the cast members have their head rebuilt, onto which the wig is knotted.
Each hair is knotted into the webbing delicately. The wigs don't only contain only one colour - to make them appear more realistic (e.g.for the Coaches) and more dramatic (e.g.for the Components), multiple colours are used. The hair is mostly synthetic, but also real and buffalo hair is used.
The average lifespan of a wig is 6 months, depending on how often it's worn and thus restyled.
