ASHLAND — When “Saturday Night Live’s” costume designer, Tom Broecker, wants authentic 17th-century clothes, he calls the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

British actor Russell Brand wore an OSF robe and crown on the national television comedy show last weekend, said Karen Rethman-Foll, the festival’s costume rental manager.

“SNL” cast members Bill Hader and Taran Killam were also dressed in OSF garb in a skit about a medieval royal taster who must sample the king’s food to ensure it’s not poisoned.

“The king’s robe and chain of office are from ‘Henry VIII’ that we did a few years ago, and the crown he wore we’ve had for about 10 years,” Rethman-Foll said.

The taster’s hat and the chef’s cloak and under robe are also OSF costumes that have been used in a number of productions, she said.

“It’s exciting to see them wearing the clothes,” Rethman-Foll said. “We watch and say, ‘Oh my gosh, look at that.’ ”

The festival has been renting costumes about five times a season to “SNL” for the past four years, she said. Broecker designed costumes for an OSF show about 10 years ago, so he knows the festival has an assortment of authentic and well-made period clothes, Rethman-Foll said.

Every Monday, she looks at the “SNL” website to see who the guest host will be that week.

“If the artist is an actor from England or is known as a Shakespearean actor, we usually are called,” she said.

The festival has dressed “SNL” guest hosts Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Laurie, among others.

Call comes in Thursday

Typically Rethman-Foll gets a call at about 11 a.m. on the Thursday before the live show, requesting costumes for certain actors.

“It’s usually fairly hectic when they call,” she said. “We just drop everything.”

Immediately, she begins hand-picking outfits, photographing them and e-mailing the choices to the “SNL” crew. They select the costumes they want by 1 p.m.

Next, Rethman-Foll packages the clothes and drives them to the Medford airport FedEx drop-off, where they are placed on an overnight plane to New York City.

‘Nerve-racking’

The process is “quite nerve-racking, and if the costumes aren’t delivered to Rockefeller Center, then we don’t get paid,” she said.

“SNL” has rented shipments of costumes ranging in price from $500 to $4,500, depending on the number of outfits, Rethman-Foll said.

Sometimes the television show skits change at the last minute and not all of the costumes are used, she said. Also, sometimes actors will switch costumes and roles, as happened Saturday. Originally, Brand was scheduled to play the chef and Hader the king, Rethman-Foll said.

“ ‘Saturday Night Live’ writes their show that week, so it’s very, very current,” she said. “They get together on Monday and figure out what they’re going to fill the show with, but that can shift over the week.”

OSF began renting costumes to theaters, universities and television and movie productions six years ago out of a warehouse on Helman Street and now has 25,000 outfits in stock, along with an equal number of accessories. All of the costumes, which can’t be rented for individual use, are visible on the website at www.osfcostumerentals.org.

The festival has rented costumes for use in a few movies and in the television shows “The Tutors,” “Brothers and Sisters” and “30 Rock,” Rethman-Foll said. About four years ago, OSF rented a costume to the White House, for a senator to wear at a party, she said.

The current festival productions, of course, get first pick of the costumes in the warehouse, Rethman-Foll said.

“All of the costumes we have here are recycled from our own shows,” she said. “We might have something we rent out that’s been worn five or six times in productions over the past 25 years.”