Video: Go Backstage at RAGTIME with Costume Designer Linda Cho
Cho's work is currently represented on Broadway with Ragtime, Schmigadoon!, and The Great Gatsby.
Linda Cho is back this Broadway season in a big way. The Tony Award-winning Costume Designer created the iconic looks of three productions: Art, Schimgadoon!, and Ragtime, where she just welcomed BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge for a behind the scenes tour.
Cho's design process began with the show's Encores! run, but continued afterwards. "I did another pass at sketching and painting and really thinking, having had that history from Encores! of what worked and what didn't. So getting a second chance to uh put it on stage was really exciting. And then one of the things that I thought really was successful at Encores! was that it was a simplified silhouette for everybody. So everyone, regardless of whether it was five months later or whatever, they're wearing the same dress," she explained. "There's something nice about isolating these characters. That sort of theatricality real works for this particular production."
She created about 200 costumes for the acclaimed revival. Where does her creative process start?
"My medium is just storytelling. It's not necessarily about fashion or anything. So having that information of that first person and then having the people that surround them support that first idea. Same with the color. You want that person to stand out or recede or whatever the information might be. So starting from the heart of the characters you see the most or that you identify most with is usually where I start."
Watch in this video as she gives a backstage tour at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre!
