Interview: Costume Designer David I. Reynoso of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS at Ohio Theatre

Set and Costume Designer David I. Reynoso thought his chances for making it on Broadway greatly diminished after moving 2,400 miles away from New York City.

Yet the farther Reynoso got from the theatre capital, the stronger his career became. In the past three years, he has earned two Tony Award nominations.

"My career was starting to bud on the East Coast and I thought this might be the beginning of something," said Reynoso, whose Tony-nominated costume designs will be on display in Columbus when WATER FOR ELEPHANTS opens June 9 at the Ohio Theatre. "Life had other plans.

"When we moved to San Diego, I thought I might have to give up theater. The irony is that the biggest opportunities of my career came because I was on the West Coast."

Those breaks arrived quickly. Reynoso earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Costume Design of a Musical in 2024 for WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, his Broadway debut as a designer. Two years later, he received a second nomination for RICHARD O'BRIEN'S ROCKY HORROR SHOW.

"I felt so fortunate to be nominated for WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, but I never expected it to happen again," said Reynoso, who finished behind Linda Cho (THE GREAT GATSBY) in 2024 and Qween Jean (CATS: THE JELLICLE BALL) on June 7. “Having my first two experiences on Broadway lead to Tony nominations feels incredible.

"Your name may be on the nomination, but there's a whole community of people who make it possible. It's gratifying to share the success I’ve had with them."

Like WATER FOR ELEPHANTS’ protagonist Jacob Jankowski, the designer has spent much of his life boarding trains without knowing exactly where they would lead.

That willingness to leap into the unknown is one reason he connected so strongly with the musical adaptation of Sara Gruen's bestselling novel.

Reynoso’s first leap of faith came when he was 12 as his family immigrated from Mexico to the United States. He described adjusting to a new country as "a big challenge."

Theatre offered a place where Reynoso felt he belonged. He enjoyed acting, but his high school teachers noticed his passion for drawing and creating imaginary worlds.

“One of my teachers suggested, ‘Have you ever considered set design as a career?’” he said.

The suggestion led Reynoso to Boston University where he studied set design. Part of the curriculum required taking a class in costume design. While he loved the artistic element of creating costumes, he thought it was just a box he had to check off en-route to his degree.

Upon graduation, Reynoso found work in The American Repertory Theatre costume shop in Cambridge, Mass. His first assignment was designing a costume for a one-woman show, THE KEENING.

“The assumption was I only had to do one costume, so I couldn’t mess it up too badly,” he said with a laugh.

Slowly Reynoso began building a reputation for his set work and costume design. Yet after relocating to San Diego, he found himself starting over and knocking on theatre doors in search of work.

In 2015, the designer found himself working with producer/director Jessica Stone for a production of George Bernard Shaw’s ARMS AND THE MAN at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. Then four years later, he worked alongside director Sam Pinkleton for planning THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW in San Francisco.

“Jessica and I had the same sensibilities over how to tell a story,” he said. “When WATER FOR ELEPHANTS was starting to percolate, she considered me as a partner in terms of creating the visuals for the show.”

Reynoso, who had not read the book before beginning work on WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, said he wanted to come into the work with a fresh set of eyes.

“(When production first started) we wanted to understand what the audience needed to experience as they're sitting in the seats,” he said. “How do we provide awe and wonder? How do we provide a beautiful and moving experience?”

Because WATER FOR ELEPHANTS is a memory play, Stone wanted parts of the production to feel like a vintage postcard.

At the same time, the show features performers doing “insane acrobatics” in what seems like ordinary clothing for the period.

“The audience thinks, ‘Oh that’s just a pair of overalls,’ but there’s a lot of engineering that went into it,” he said. “I think of these clothes as being sort of a dancing partner for the performers.”

One of Reynoso’s favorite parts of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS was a dash of purple in the costumes.

Reynoso was in his 20s when his sister Paula passed away. Since then, the designer has included subtle tributes to her in each show he designs.

“She and I were very close and I always try to carry her with me,” he said. “In all the projects I do, I find ways to reference her. Purple was her favorite color.”

Pinkleton’s ideas for ROCKY HORROR in San Francisco never made it to the stage. The day before practices were supposed to start, Reynoso said “the world shut down” because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

However, in 2025, Pinkleton set out to revive the schlock rock opera on Broadway and asked Reynoso to join him on the journey.

ROCKY HORROR, however, offered a different task – honoring Sue Blane’s original concepts for the 1973 debut while adding Reynoso’s own ideas.

“One of the factors that is so beloved about ROCKY HORROR is the scrappiness and the Do It Yourself quality of the costumes,” he said. “You’re trying to find the balance between honoring the source material and presenting what we’re doing now.”

After the June 7 Tony Awards, Reynoso takes another leap onto the moving train of the unknown, assuming the role of set and Costume Designer for HOMBRES at The Old Globe Theatre.

 “A lot of my career has come through things that may have been a little less ‘traditional,’” he said. “Sometimes things seem to be going in the opposite direction you assume it would be, but that always led to some beautiful opportunities. And I just couldn’t be more grateful for that.”

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS runs June 9-14 at the Ohio Theatre (39 E. State Street in downtown Columbus).

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