2016 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Announced

Scenic and costume designer, Michael Yeargan (currently represented on Broadway with Fiddler on the Roof and The King and I), and costume designer Susan Tsu are among the 2016 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards recipients. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on Friday, May 20, at 6:30pm, at the Edison Ballroom (240 West 47th Street). Tsu was selected to receive the 2016 TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award for costume design and Yeargan will receive the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design. The awards are presented through Theatre Development Fund's Costume Collection.

Additionally, costume designer Suttirat Larlarb (currently represented on Broadway with Waitress and Finding Neverland) will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award, and authors and designers Liz Covey and the late Rosemary Ingham will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Artisan Award.

"As we reviewed the list of awardees, the committee realized that in addition to their personal artistry, there was another common denominator," says Stephen Cabral, director of TDF's Costume Collection which curates the awards, and chair of the TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Voting Committee. "They all were currently teaching or had taught their craft at prestigious universities -- doing the service of paying it forward to the next generation of designers. That's what makes these awardees so special."

During the ceremony, as a special memorial tribute to legendary costume and scenic designer Dorothy Jeakins, there will be a screening of an original 15-minute film on her life, created by designer Suzy Benzinger.

Throughout her long and distinguished career, elegance and an attention to detail were the trademarks of costume designer Irene Sharaff. Sharaff was revered as a designer of enormous depth and intelligence, equally secure with both contemporary and period costumes. Her work exemplified the best of costume design. Such excellence is demonstrated by the winners of the 2016 TDF/Irene Sharaff awardees.

About the Awardees:

SUSAN TSU (TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award) is currently a professor of Costume Design at Carnegie Mellon University. She has designed costumes for theatre, opera, and television for over 40 years. She designed costumes for the original Broadway production of Godspell. Other memorable productions include The Joy Luck Club (the first collaboration between Chinese and American companies -- Long Wharf and Shanghai People's Art Theatre), Pop (City Theatre), The Task (Quantum Theatre), The Greeks, Dracula: A Musical Nightmare, and The Importance of Being Earnest (Alley Theatre); A Midsummer Night's Dream and King Lear (Cincinnati Playhouse); Amadeus, and The Royal Family (Pittsburgh Public Theater). Her more recent designs include Romeo and Juliet (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), As You Like It (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Pantagleize (Quantum Theatre), and Outside Mullingar (City Theatre). Some of the awards she's garnered over the years have been the New York Drama Desk Award, New York Drama Critics Award, New York Young Film Critics Award, Los Angeles Distinguished Designer Award, and a Kennedy Center Medal of Achievement.

MICHAEL YEARGAN (Robert L. B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design), a scenic and costume designer, Yeargan is the co-chair of the Design Department of the Yale School of Drama. He is currently represented on Broadway with the scenic designs for The King and I (Tony nomination) and Fiddler on the Roof. He holds Tony Awards for his designs for South Pacific and The Light in the Piazza, and earned Tony nominations for Golden Boy, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and Awake and Sing. Among his other Broadway credits are: The Bridges of Madison County, The Road to Mecca, Cymbeline, Awake and Sing!, The Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm, Ah Wilderness!, Hay Fever, and The Ritz, among others. He has designed extensively for opera, Off Broadway, and regionally.

SUTTIRAT LARLARB (TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award) is an associate professor of Costume Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Her costumes are currently seen in the Broadway productions of Waitress and Finding Neverland. She also provided costumes for the recent Broadway revival of Of Mice and Men. Other stage productions include Frankenstein (Royal National Theatre); The Killer (Theatre for a New Audience), Macbeth (Hartford Stage), Tape, The Lively Lad, and Orange Lemon Egg Canary (Humana Festival). Her film and television work includes: Costume & Production Designer -- London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony (Emmy Award); 127 Hours (Art Directors Guild nomination); Slumdog Millionaire (Costume Designers Guild Award); Trance; Sunshine; The American; The Extra Man; Cinema Verite (Emmy nomination); 10,000 Saints; The Good Lie, The Walk, and Steve Jobs.

LIZ COVEY and ROSEMARY INGHAM (TDF/Irene Sharaff Artisan Award) these two educators and designers, together wrote three seminal books on the art of Costume Design: The Costumer's Handbook, The Costume Designer's Handbook, and The Costume Technician's Handbook. Additionally, Ingham wrote From Page to Stage: How Theatre Designers Make Connections Between Texts and Images. For their work they received the Golden Pen Award of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology in 2004 and in 2006 Ingham received the institute's Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award. Ingham taught at Southern Methodist University and at the University of Mary Washington. She died in 2008 at age 71. Covey, who currently lives in New York City, is a member of the faculty of the Theatre Department at Barnard College, Columbia University, Marymount Manhattan College, and also teaches at Bennington College.

DOROTHY JEAKINS (Memorial Tribute) (1914-1995) was a distinguished costume designer for stage and film who worked with some of the biggest names during the Golden Age of Hollywood (including John Houseman, Edith Head, John Huston, Cecil B. DeMille, Victor Fleming, and Robert Rose). She was the recipient of the very first Academy Award for Costume Design (color) in 1948 for Joan of Arc. She is the recipient of 3 Tony Award nominations: The World of Suzie Wong (1959), Too Late the Phalarope (1957), and Major Barbara (1957). She also designed the costumes for six other Broadway productions between 1950 and 1963 including Affairs of State; Winesburg, Ohio; The Taming of the Shrew; Cue for Passion; A Taste of Honey; and My Mother, My Father and Me. Just a sampling of the two dozen classic films she designed costumes for are: The Greatest Show on Earth, Niagara, South Pacific, Elmer Gantry, Let's Make Love, The Music Man, The Sound of Music, The Way We Were, Young Frankenstein, and On Golden Pond. Summing up her work, Jeakins once said: "I can put my world down to two words: 'make beauty' -- it's my cue and my private passion."

TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Voting Committee:

The awardees were selected by the TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Voting Committee, which is comprised of leading members of the theatrical costume design community. They are: Stephen Cabral, Chair; Gregg Barnes, Suzy Benzinger, Dean Brown, Traci DiGesu, Linda Fisher, Lana Fritz, Rodney Gordon, Desmond Heeley, Allen Lee Hughes, Holly Hynes, Carolyn Kostopoulos, Anna Louizos, Mimi Maxmen, David Murin, Sally Ann Parsons, Robert Perdziola, Gregory Poplyk, Carrie Robbins, Tony Walton, Patrick Wiley, and David Zinn.

This year's TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Ceremony is being generously underwritten by The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund.