This book, assembled by Arnold Wengrow from the memoirs of costume designer Patricia Zipprodt, takes the reader right into the backstage areas and rehearsal rooms of Broadway.
Richly illustrated in colour throughout, this book is a work of art in itself, celebrating and showcasing Zipprodt’s creativity. It also contains entertaining stories about employers, performers, and more as it moves through the life of a role theatregoers often take for granted.
Although Zipprodt died in 1999, her voice and vivacity is evident in every page; her passion for her craft is clear. Her memoirs are very honest about the business and particularly abrasive about Hollywood, where she was engaged to design for The Graduate in 1967.
2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Zipprodt’s birth. She chronicles both triumphs and disappointments in her career, with a gift for storytelling. One anecdote about a curiously coloured suit and actor Melvyn Douglas is both amusing and informative.
Where her voice ends and Wengrow’s ‘channelling’ begins is not easy to spot, which makes the book an easy read from start to finish, bringing a golden period on the Great White Way come to dazzling life.l
I’m most familiar with Zipprodt’s work from the video recordings of Pippin and 1776 in the 1970s. To read about her earlier careers as illustrator and puppeteer offers an insight into her ideas and sense of what works in terms of light, fabric and movement.
Personally, we hear about her romance with a man she first met at graduation, then reconnected with and married 40 years later after he saw her biography in Playbill. A story that could have graced the footlights of the Broadway stage.
This hardback looks good on both shelf and coffee table, and it is refreshing to hear from a designer in theatre rather than actors and directors. If there’s a similar work by a lighting or sound designer, send it my way.
If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change The Dress is now available from Methuen Drama.