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Costumes were designed to bring out the diversity of characters and classes in Ragtime.
Ragtime’s costumes used a lot of rayon in the women’s dresses, details of which were scaled up to
be more theatrical and visible from the audience.
How many people do you normally have working on a show
like this?
It depends on the show. I think it was 14 in Washington, too.
People change their clothes a lot in Ragtime.
On the average Broadway show, how many people usually
work on wardrobe and costumes?
I don’t think you can say because this had a sizable company,
even though it was smaller than the original production. A show
can have a chorus of 8 instead of 20. That’s one of the reasons they
have small choruses, because they can have a smaller crew.
What kind of changes have you seen in your craft over the
last 10 years that are different from when you get Ragtime
originally?
Well, we did use largely all the original costumes, and there
were things we changed about the way they were made, just
to make quick changes more efficient for the New York crew.
Michael really expressed what he thought was a more efficient
way from his experience, and I was invariably in agreement with
him. Things were kind of cleaned up a little bit—a little sleeker, a
little neater. Not that they didn’t look fine originally, but it was a
different way of doing things. The costumes were originally made
at Livent Costumes in Toronto, and their shop was kind of geared
towards an English construction notion. There were things that
were more like English theatre than American, and we converted
them more to our system.
What were the main fabrics used in creating these costumes?
There is certainly a lot of wool in Ragtime. [laughs] And
that's because there was more beautiful wool available then
than there is now. There’s a ton of rayon in the show in the
women’s dresses, which is why they swirl about so much. It’s
a show, and the scale of things was pushed up to be theatrical
so you could sense the detail, but the approach was kind
of like a film. It was layered, and you tried to bring out the
character of all these people. That was the diversity of it—in
the first few scenes, the immigrants and the Harlem people
and the New Rochelle crowd—and you hope that it’s this rich
tapestry.
What are you working on right now?
I’m working on the scenery for Fences right now. I mostly do
scenery.
How do the sensibilities of your two design skills inform each
other?
It varies. Right now I’m doing scenery and costumes for a ballet
based on Eugene Onegin. I’m doing scenery and costumes
for Dangerous Liaisons in Stratford, so it’s often the case that I do
both. I don’t know, I’ve always done it like that. There are costume
designers that I like to work with, and it’s rare that I’ve done just
costumes. With Ragtime it was the scale of it and the people
involved initially that made it a fascinating project. Years ago I did
Grand Hotel, and it was the same situation. I thought it would be
wonderful to work with Tommy Tune and Tony Walton.
Is it easier for you to do both costumes and scenic design?
I was talking to Ian MacNeil, who’s in town getting the Billy Elliot
tour on the road, and he used to assist me. He said he stopped
doing costumes. He used to do both, but he found that he actually
liked having another designer to talk to in the theatre. There were
so many costume designers he liked working with that he preferred
that. And it’s often like that, the collaboration. I’ve worked
with Suzy Benzinger and Jane Greenwood, and it’s fun to have
them in the house with you.
There a lot of people on Broadway who do scenic and lighting
design.
I think there used to be more in the ‘50s and ‘60s because it was
the tradition. These days it is so complicated doing the lighting
that I don’t know how you’d have time to do both.
30 March 2010 • www.stage-directions.com