Patricia Zipprodt
Encyclopedia
Patricia Zipprodt was an American
costume designer
. She was known for her technique of painting fabrics and thoroughly researching a project's subject matter, especially when it was a period piece
. During a career that spanned four decades, she worked with such Broadway theatre
legends as Jerome Robbins
, Hal Prince
, Gower Champion
, David Merrick
, and Bob Fosse
.
and sociology
. After graduation she moved to New York City
and, after seeing a performance by the New York City Ballet
, decided to use her artistic talent for a career in costume design. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology
and apprenticed with Charles James
and Irene Sharaff
.
Her first Broadway credit was The Potting Shed
, a play by Graham Greene
, in 1957. She went on to design more than 50 productions over the next 43 years. In 1992, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. She also designed for the New York City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet
, the Houston Ballet
, American Ballet Theater, the New York City Opera
, and the Metropolitan Opera
. She designed costumes and masks for the long-running off-Broadway
production of the Jean Genet
play The Blacks
in the early 1960s.
Zipprodt's feature film
credits include The Graduate
, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots
, and 1776
. She designed television
adaptations of The Glass Menagerie
, Alice in Wonderland, and Sunday in the Park with George
.
In 1946, following her graduation from Wellesley, Zipprodt had returned to Chicago, where she met Lieut. Col. Robert O'Brien, Jr. He proposed but she declined because she wanted to pursue a career. More than forty years later, the retired and widowed O'Brien saw her biography
in Playbill
and contacted her via Brandeis University
, where she was an artist in residence.
on July 17, 1999 at her home in Greenwich Village
. She was 74 years old.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
costume designer
Costume Designer
A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...
. She was known for her technique of painting fabrics and thoroughly researching a project's subject matter, especially when it was a period piece
Period piece
-Setting:In the performing arts, a period piece is a work set in a particular era. This informal term covers all countries, all periods and all genres...
. During a career that spanned four decades, she worked with such Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
legends as Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
, Hal Prince
Hal Prince
Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...
, Gower Champion
Gower Champion
Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer.-Early years:Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois, the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School...
, David Merrick
David Merrick
David Merrick was a prolific Tony Award-winning American theatrical producer.-Life and career:Born David Lee Margulois to Jewish parents in St. Louis, Missouri, Merrick graduated from Washington University, then studied law at the Jesuit-run Saint Louis University School of Law...
, and Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Zipprodt attended Bradford Junior College for her freshman year and then transferred to Wellesley College, where she abandoned her plan to become a medical illustrator and concentrated on psychologyPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
. After graduation she moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and, after seeing a performance by the New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet
New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...
, decided to use her artistic talent for a career in costume design. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology
Fashion Institute of Technology
The Fashion Institute of Technology, generally known as FIT, is a State University of New York college of art, business, design, and technology connected to the fashion industry, with an urban campus located on West 27th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of...
and apprenticed with Charles James
Charles James (designer)
Charles James was a fashion designer known as America's first couturier. He is considered a master of cutting and is known for his highly structured aesthetic.-Early life:...
and Irene Sharaff
Irene Sharaff
Irene Sharaff was an American costume designer for stage and screen. Her work earned her five Academy Awards and a Tony Award.- Background :...
.
Her first Broadway credit was The Potting Shed
The Potting Shed
The Potting Shed is a play by Graham Greene. The psychological drama centers on a secret held by the Callifer family for nearly thirty years....
, a play by Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, in 1957. She went on to design more than 50 productions over the next 43 years. In 1992, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. She also designed for the New York City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet
Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet is a dance company in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1956. From 1995 to 2004, the company was known as The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. The company regularly performs classical ballets including Romeo & Juliet and The Nutcracker, while balancing those classics with pioneering modern...
, the Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet
The Houston Ballet, operated by the Houston Ballet Foundation, is the fourth-largest professional ballet company in the United States, based in Houston, Texas. The foundation also maintains a ballet academy, the Ben Stevenson Academy, which trains more than half of the company's dancers...
, American Ballet Theater, the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, and the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
. She designed costumes and masks for the long-running off-Broadway
Off-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
production of the Jean Genet
Jean Genet
Jean Genet was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing...
play The Blacks
The Blacks (play)
The Blacks: A Clown Show is a play by the French dramatist Jean Genet. Published in 1958, it was first performed in a production directed by Roger Blin at the Théatre de Lutèce in Paris, which opened on 28 October 1959....
in the early 1960s.
Zipprodt's feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
credits include The Graduate
The Graduate
The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama motion picture directed by Mike Nichols. It is based on the 1963 novel The Graduate by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay was by Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as a hotel clerk, and Calder...
, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots
Last of the Mobile Hot Shots is a 1970 American drama film released by Warner Brothers. The screenplay by Gore Vidal is based on the Tennessee Williams play The Seven Descents of Myrtle....
, and 1776
1776 (musical)
1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence...
. She designed television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
adaptations of The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie is a four-character memory play by Tennessee Williams. Williams worked on various drafts of the play prior to writing a version of it as a screenplay for MGM, to whom Williams was contracted...
, Alice in Wonderland, and Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George
Sunday in the Park with George is a 1984 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. The musical was inspired by the painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat...
.
In 1946, following her graduation from Wellesley, Zipprodt had returned to Chicago, where she met Lieut. Col. Robert O'Brien, Jr. He proposed but she declined because she wanted to pursue a career. More than forty years later, the retired and widowed O'Brien saw her biography
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
in Playbill
Playbill
Playbill is a monthly U.S. magazine for theatregoers. Although there is a subscription issue available for home delivery, most Playbills are printed for particular shows to be distributed at the door...
and contacted her via Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, where she was an artist in residence.
Death
Colonel O'Brien and Zipprodt were married on June 5, 1993 and remained married until his death in 1998. Zipprodt died of cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on July 17, 1999 at her home in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. She was 74 years old.
Productions
- Miss LonelyheartsMiss LonelyheartsMiss Lonelyhearts, published in 1933, is Nathanael West's second novel. It is an Expressionist black comedy set in New York City during the Great Depression.-Plot summary:...
(1957) - Sunday in New YorkSunday in New YorkSunday in New York, filmed in Metrocolor, is a 1963 American comedy film directed by Peter Tewksbury and starring Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson, and Rod Taylor. It was one of Fonda's earliest films, and she was called "the loveliest and most gifted of all our new young actresses" by Newsday...
(1961) - She Loves MeShe Loves MeShe Loves Me is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and music by Jerry Bock.The musical is the fifth adaptation of the play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklos Laszlo, following the 1940 James Stewart-Margaret Sullavan film The Shop around the Corner and the...
(1963) - Fiddler on the RoofFiddler on the RoofFiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
(1964) - CabaretCabaret (musical)Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
(1966) - The Little FoxesThe Little FoxesThe Little Foxes is a 1939 play by Lillian Hellman. Its title comes from Chapter 2, Verse 15 in the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible, which reads, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes." Set in a small town in Alabama in...
(1967) - Plaza SuitePlaza SuitePlaza Suite is a comedy play by Neil Simon.-Plot:The play is composed of three acts, each involving different characters but all set in Suite 719 of New York City's Plaza Hotel...
(1968) - Zorba (1968)
- GeorgyGeorgyGeorgy is a musical with a book by Tom Mankiewicz, lyrics by Carole Bayer, and music by George Fischoff.Based on the Margaret Forster novel Georgy Girl and the subsequent 1966 film adaptation, it tells the story of awkward, overweight, dowdy music teacher Georgy; her beautiful, self-centered...
(1970) - PippinPippin (musical)Pippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...
(1972) - Mack & MabelMack & MabelMack & Mabel is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. The plot involves the tumultuous romantic relationship between Hollywood director Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand , who became one of his biggest stars...
(1974) - ChicagoChicago (musical)Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
(1975) - Poor MurdererPoor MurdererPoor Murderer was a 1976 Broadway play written by Pavel Kohout that premiered at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on October 20, 1976 and closed on January 2, 1977 after 87 performances.-Setting:...
(1976)
- King of HeartsKing of Hearts (musical)King of Hearts is a 1978 musical with a book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Jacob Brackman, and music by Peter Link, orchestrated by Bill Brohn. It is based on the 1966 anti-war cult film of the same name....
(1978) - FoolsFools (play)Fools is a light-hearted romantic comedy by Neil Simon, set in the small village of Kulyenchikov, Ukraine , during the late 19th century....
(1981) - Brighton Beach MemoirsBrighton Beach MemoirsBrighton Beach Memoirs is a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon, the first chapter in what is known as his Eugene trilogy. It precedes Biloxi Blues and Broadway Bound.-Characters:*Eugene Morris Jerome, almost 15...
(1983) - Alice in Wonderland (1983)
- Sweet CharitySweet CharitySweet Charity is a musical with music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields and book by Neil Simon. It was directed and choreographed for Broadway by Bob Fosse starring his wife and muse Gwen Verdon. It is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for Nights of Cabiria...
(1986) - Into the WoodsInto the WoodsInto the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife brought acclaim...
(1987) - Jerome Robbins' BroadwayJerome Robbins' BroadwayJerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show....
(1989) - Cat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin RoofCat on a Hot Tin Roof is a play by Tennessee Williams. One of Williams's best-known works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955...
(1990) - Shogun: The MusicalShogun: The MusicalShōgun: The Musical is a musical with a book and lyrics by John Driver and music by Paul Chihara.Based on James Clavell's 1976 epic novel and the 1980 television mini-series of the same name it spawned, it centers on shipwrecked English sea captain John Blackthorne, who finds himself drawn into a...
(1990) - The CrucibleThe CrucibleThe Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists...
(1991) - My Favorite YearMy Favorite Year (musical)My Favorite Year is a musical with a book by Joseph Dougherty, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. It is based on the film of the same name.-Production history:...
(1992) - My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
(1993)
Awards and nominations
- 1997 Theatre Development FundTheatre Development FundThe Theater Development Fund is a non-profit corporation dedicated to assisting the theatre industry in New York City. Created in 1968 to help an ailing New York theatre industry, TDF has grown into the nation's largest performing arts nonprofit, providing support to more than 900 plays and...
's Irene Sharaff Award for Lifetime Achievement in Costume Design (winner) - 1994 Drama Desk AwardDrama Desk AwardThe Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
for Outstanding Costume Design (My Fair Lady, nominee) - 1991 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Shogun, nominee)
- 1991 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costumes (Shogun, winner)
- 1986 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Sweet Charity, winner)
- 1984 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Sunday in the Park with George, nominee)
- 1984 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (Sunday in the Park with George, nominee)
- 1983 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Alice in Wonderland, nominee)
- 1983 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (Alice in Wonderland, nominee)
- 1981 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (Fools, nominee)
- 1979 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (King of Hearts, winner)
- 1976 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Chicago, nominee)
- 1975 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Mack & Mabel, nominee)
- 1973 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Pippin, nominee)
- 1973 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (Pippin, winner)
- 1971 Wellesley's Alumnae Achievement Award (winner)
- 1969 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Zorba, nominee)
- 1969 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (1776, winner)
- 1969 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design (Zorba, winner)
- 1967 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Cabaret, winner)
- 1965 Tony Award for Best Costume Design (Fiddler on the Roof, winner)