First Ever Book On The History Of The Theatre Costume Business is Out Now
The book features interviews with award-winning actors, designers, and the costume makers themselves.
By: Gigi Gervais Dec. 12, 2021
Taylor & Francis Group, the largest publisher in performing arts, has just released the first-ever book on the history of the theatre-costume business under its Routledge imprint. Written by a trio of practicing professionals with vast and varied experience, the book features interviews with award-winning actors, designers, and the costume makers themselves. It is ground-breaking journalism, moving first-hand accounts, and a rare peek behind the curtain on Broadway and around the world.
Stage clothes are haute couture that works for a living: custom made with the finest materials and with the strength to endure eight shows a week for years. There are innumerable books about the stage - actors, directors, designers, impresarios, even the theaters themselves - but the story of the people who make stage clothes has never before been told.
Chita Rivera relates how the skirt in West Side Story helped her and Jerome Robbins remember choreography. James Monroe Iglehart laughs over how he flew through the air in a Cowardly Lion costume, and escaped a magnet trap. Paul Tazewell explains the collaboration among designer, actor, and costume maker. William Ivey Long marvels at the moment Patricia Zipprodt made theater history in the basement of Barbara Matera's costume shop. The work of more than a decade of research and reporting, the book tells the stories of people who can no longer tell their own: Ray Diffen, founder of the business as it exists today; Danny Geoly, owner of the last of the great rental shops of mid-century; designers Willa Kim and Desmond Heeley.
All three authors have decades of experience in their fields. Triffin I. Morris worked in most of the major Broadway shops, collaborating with many designers in building costumes for dozens of blockbuster shows. She now is head of the graduate costume technology program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her husband Gregory DL Morris is an independent business journalist and historian who has reported from around the world. Rachel E. Pollock has been a craftsperson on Broadway and regional theater around the country. She also teaches at UNC.
Lavishly illustrated, the 222-page book features costumes from the sublime to the ridiculous, as well as photographs of the rarely seen people who made them. It includes a groundbreaking family tree of costume shops over more than a century.
Creators of Character is available in paperback or digital download. It can be ordered from local bookstores, on-line booksellers, or directly from the publisher.
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