BERWICK – The costume barn at Hackmatack Playhouse has droves of costumes, as in racks and trunks and boxes of just about anything from any era in any color you can think of. The containers are labeled by category – hats, scarves, veils, vests – and by scores and decades from the 1800s up to the present.

But when it comes time to finding, say, a red cotton cowboy outfit for the 22-year-old playing the late, great country singer Patsy Cline, it is nowhere to be found.

That is when costume wizard Fran Bechtold heads to New Hampshire – Nashua, or Concord or Rochester – to beg, borrow and steal a costume that another theater is happy to loan. If that doesn’t work, Goodwill is always a possibility.

“The costumes have to be of the time period,” said Bechtold, who has done costuming for Hackmatack for 17 years, as she sifted through the theater’s racks for the late ’50s/early ’60s styles she knew the pioneering singer would wear.

In the case of “Always… Patsy Cline,” playing through June 29 at Hackmatack Playhouse, Bechtel was able to find most of what Hackmatack didn’t have from either the Hat Box Theater in Concord or the Rochester Opera House in Rochester.

“The theaters are all good about sharing,” noted Danica Carlson, director for “Always… Patsy Cline,” who also will appear on stage next month in “Mamma Mia” at Hackmatack.

While “Always… Patsy Cline” has only two characters needing a total of 13 outfits, plus one for each of the four band members, “Mamma Mia” will require some 100 costumes. The cast for that musical is large and the action takes place over many different days, noted Bechtold, who in the past has also taken the stage at Hackmatack.

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” opening July 3, and “Peter and The Starcatcher,” opening Aug. 14 will have more modest requirements, but still demand their share of Bechtold’s wizardry.

In “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” the main characters each need three outfits and then a few other actors who play several small parts will have a base costume and will add pieces to identify various roles. The 13 people who play a myriad of pirates, mermaids and other characters in “Peter and the Starcatcher” each have a base costume and then change in and out of several dozen add-ons.

Although “Always.. Patsy Cline” didn’t call for a huge number of outfits, the costume changes will be challenging. Ten of the costumes are all worn by Emily Whitlow, who plays Patsy, which means significant organization and several helping hands backstage will be needed to assist with the changes.

To choose the costumes, Bechtold, a sixth-grade school teacher in Northwood, researches the show and the era. She also turns to the director for information.

In the case of “Always.. Patsy Cline,” Carlson found a museum that featured the late country star’s actual clothing, which is how she got to the red cotton cowboy outfit.

“I really like researching,” Carlson said, as she looked for something spangly to put on Whitlow.

“The hard part ,” Bechtold said, “is trying to get it to look like what she actually wore. It’s not possible without spending lots of money.” And that is money that is not available at a small theater like Hackmatack.

Much of the time Bechtold has to custom fit the clothing for the actors. If necessary, she will make the costume herself. Once an actor who weighed about 300 pounds was cast in a show, so Bechtold took him to a store for large sizes and bought one outfit to use for sizing all the costumes she had to make. Unfortunately he lost weight during the production and his outer layer fell off. Fortunately she had made sure he wore a slip underneath.

In the past, some of the largest demands on Bechtold came from large casts, including 500 costume pieces for “Spamalot,” 300 for “The Producers and 200 for “Oliver”

“Those were very stressful shows,” said Bechtold. “I was buying, making, and borrowing from everywhere.”

Usually, though, once the season begins most of Bechtold’s work is over and she is calm.

“May is panic month,” she said. “I look at the schedule and what I have to do and I panic. But then, once I am doing it, I’m OK.”

As far as the red cotton cowboy suit, it was nowhere to be found. Bechtold ended up taking a wool one instead, a compromise “Patsy” will have to live with.