Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Avery Sommers, foreground, and Inga Ballard prepare for "Crowns," which opens tonight. Click photo for larger image. 'Crowns' Where: City Theatre, 57 S. 13th St., South Side When: Through Oct. 16. Tues. 7 p.m.; Wed.-Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 5:30 and 9 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m. Tickets: $15 to $40; 412-431-2489 or www.CityTheatreCompany.org. Special notes: Wear a hat to any show and receive a free sweet tea. Photographer Michael Cunningham will give a slide show and host a book signing following the 2 p.m. performance on Oct. 9. Related article 'Crowns' director took career leap with Wilson's 'Radio Golf'

-- Costumer designer Susan Tsu

On the upper floors of City Theatre's workshop building on the South Side, Susan Tsu gingerly makes her way around the cramped quarters that are home to the theater's costume designers, gently stepping around dozens of hats and hat boxes filling the room.

Tsu, her assistant Celina Ferencz and costumer Angela Vesco have been working this way for weeks, inspecting, rejecting and debating the merits of nearly 400 hats gathered from universities and theaters around the country.

Of that number, just 20 will find their way to the heads of the actresses starring in "Crowns," Regina Taylor's musical that celebrates the history and spirit of black women and their hats. The show opens City Theatre's new season today and runs through Oct. 16.

It's a story, if you will, about hattitude, based on the best-selling book "Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats" by photographer Michael Cunningham and essayist Craig Marberry.

Tsu, a graduate of Churchill High School and Carnegie Mellon University, where she now teaches costume design, was working at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park when she happened upon a nearby hat exhibit mounted because of the book.

"I was so captivated by the hats and the stories of the women," said Tsu, who bought the coffee-table book as a gift for a friend. "And then, City Theatre called."

She jumped at the chance to be costume designer on the theatrical adaptation in which the characters tell lively and moving stories, sing traditional spirituals and gospel songs and, of course, model the hats, from a shiny sequined number not entirely appropriate for church to a design that pays tribute to the late Queen Mother.

There's even a hat that looks like a fox.

Taylor's story centers on Yolanda, a girl from Brooklyn whose favorite hat is a baseball cap worn backward. After her brother is killed, Yolanda's mother sends her down South to escape the tough life of the streets and live with her grandmother. There Yolanda encounters the rituals of preparing for and going to Sunday church service and begins to find connections to older traditions and deeper spirituality.

"The show is a celebration of the African-American woman and how her headpieces have developed and the way she presents them at church," Tsu said.

The production answers many questions about hat etiquette, such as the proper way to hug someone wearing a large-brim hat or how to choose proper hat dimensions. It also makes observations about hats: that they must be chosen carefully, that they complete an outfit, and that they can send signals to others about how you want to be treated.

The cast includes two former Post-Gazette Performers of the Year, Maria Becoates Bey and Etta Cox, along with Garbie Dukes, Linda Haston, Khaliah Adams, Inga Ballard and Avery Sommers.

Tsu said the process of finding and designing hats for the women was no small task. The hats not only have to enhance a character's personality and be functional but also have to flatter the actresses wearing them.

And as any woman knows, it's not easy to find the right hat.

"We had to find a way to make them work aesthetically and practically," Tsu said. "I could tell which of the actresses had worn hats before, because as soon as they put them on, they started working them. Working it is part of wearing the hat."