Welcome to the Musicals Thread, the Avocado’s space for anything and everything related to musical theatre! Every month I’ll post a discussion prompt, but please feel free to comment on other topics, from new discoveries to old favorites. If you have ideas for future prompts or would like to write a feature for the thread, let me know!
Last week, Paul Tazewell (deservedly, I think) received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for his work in the film adaptation of Wicked. He was previously nominated in the same category for 2021’s West Side Story. In its 77-year history, the award has gone to a movie musical 11 previous times, and in the 58 years during which the award category included both plays and musicals, the Tony for Best Costume Design went to a musical 41 times, as well. With all due respect to Martin Charnin, it appears what one wears from head to toe matters, too.
As much as in any medium, the costumes in musicals can dazzle the eye, act as clues to the wearer’s nature, help tell the story, or all of the above. For example, everyone’s dolled up in their period-appropriate best for the final sequence in Hairspray (one of those Tony winners mentioned above), but Edna Turnblad makes the grandest entrance of all. She bursts out of a giant hairspray can in a bold red dress of her own design, demonstrating how much she’s grown from the timid homebody laundress of Act 1 and supporting the show’s themes of self-confidence and chasing dreams in the face of naysayers. When dramaturg Jack Viertel challenged that such a spotlight moment should logically go to the protagonist Tracy instead, director Jack O’Brien (per Viertel’s The Secret Life of the American Musical) maintained that the joy of the sight of Edna emerging in that dress would bypass all other concerns.
What are your favorite/the most memorable costumes from musicals?