Betsy Wolfe’s DIY Feather Lamp Completes Her Romantic Dressing Room

By Morgan Goldberg

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“This is my eighth Broadway show, and I can honestly say this is the coolest dressing room I have ever been able to have,” Betsy raves. “I’m super spoiled with space.”

Within the contiguous United States, Betsy Wolfe couldn’t have grown up farther away from Broadway—she was raised in a small agricultural town in Central California. But her parents introduced her to theater at an early age, often bringing her to see touring musicals in Los Angeles or San Francisco, and she was immediately drawn to the stage. “I just fell in love with that art form and I set my sights on doing live theater,” she remembers. “And thank goodness I had a supportive family, as well as some talent to back it up.”

Betsy earned a musical theater degree at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and then began performing professionally. She starred in the San Francisco and Boston productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and continued on to Broadway, where her credits include Everyday Rapture, Bullets Over Broadway, Falsettos, and Waitress. She’s also dabbled in opera, television, and movies.

Now, Betsy is playing the leading role of Anne Hathaway in & Juliet, a new musical comedy that answers the question: “What if Juliet didn’t die for Romeo?” It’s a bold revision of Shakespeare’s most famous play, featuring a playlist of iconic pop anthems and a sweet message about the beauty of second chances. “The book is by David West Read of Schitt’s Creek, so it’s also very funny,” Betsy says. “It shouldn't all work as a show, and yet it is just the most joyous, fun time to possibly have on Broadway right now.”

The show is currently running at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, which is where Betsy spends all her time when she’s not in her Upper West Side abode with her husband and their daughter. Her dressing room is basically her second home, but she didn’t want to recreate her primary residence. “I just wanted it to feel inviting and special when I walked in and also unlike my house in a certain way, too,” she explains.

Since Betsy’s actual home is crisp and white, she opted for a moody, old Hollywood aesthetic when she began to design her dressing room last fall. Her interior designer, Crystal Sinclair, helped her achieve this dreamy hideaway vibe with dark floral wallpaper and vintage gems like a bubblegum pink velvet armchair. “I wanted to fill the space with meaningful antiques, as a nod to the character that I play,” reasons Betsy. “I wanted it to feel very romantic and Victorian, but also modern, just like our show has a modern twist.”

Betsy displays special gifts from opening night on her nana’s vintage tray.

Though the two women were very intentional with sourcing decor for the dressing room, Betsy acquired what would become her favorite item by chance. She was picking up a vintage hunter green velvet sofa that she found on Craigslist when she spotted a gold lamp in the seller’s apartment and, on a whim, asked if she could purchase it too. It was covered in metal leaves and she instantly saw its potential to become something more dramatic.

“I love flowers,” says Betsy. “And a lot of my costumes in the show have flower detailing on them. I actually even wear a fake flower tattoo every night in the show, so I went with floral wallpaper. It’s from Spoonflower. And it has to be removable for the dressing room.”

The DIY project really came together when Betsy’s costume dresser, Eric Strauss, suggested punching up the lamp with a shade made of ostrich feathers. “It just all made sense to me,” she recalls. “It’s an homage to the quill that I take in the show to rewrite the story. So I went to a trimming store and bought 10 of these beautiful peach ostrich feathers. Over the span of about four weeks, during rehearsals, we just kept adding more and more until opening and then it was finished.”

Betsy loves the DIY lamp because it reminds her of a significant time, right before & Juliet opened. It’s her first show since giving birth and though it was difficult to return to work as a new mother, she felt strongly about accepting the role. “When I read this script, I just was like, ‘Oh man, this is a story that I’ll be so proud to be able to tell my daughter about someday,’” she says. “I knew I had to do it.”

The DIY feather lamp is juxtaposed with a 1960s Italian rope and tassel side table that Betsy found on Chairish.

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The lamp is also the only piece in her dressing room that was custom-made for the space. “It's just really special,” she admits. “It really catches your eye when you walk in. And they sell these for thousands of dollars, so I also feel very lucky to have been the recipient of Eric’s work. He really, truly made it with me.” It was a dual labor of love.

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