Education — a fine arts foundation in Boston, then a formative MFA in Wisconsin designing Greek tragedy.
The London years — costume history scholarship at the Courtauld by day, resident designer at the Greenwich Theatre by night.
A Broadway debut, a Chicago detour, and two years touring Europe with a radical avant-garde theatre company.
Tolling bells, howling dogs, creaking coffins, a spider-eating lunatic and the screams of the undead are just a few of the ingredients of the Court's Christmas attraction. In this brainstorming version of the travelling Pip Simmons Theatre Group's spine-chilling panto, they hurl themselves with the religious fervency of a black-mass congregation. Blood by the gallon gushes from the wounds and mouths of the victims, and screams and smoke issue freely from the murky stage.
Dracula's presence merely releases the various urges of an assortment of scientists, poets, heroines and heroes who loose their trousers and nighties as the mood takes them. The music by Chris Jordan (doubling the voice of God) is a knockout. There is a bit too much Mel Brooks for my liking, but this said, PS are the most visually exciting group in Britain and we should be proud of them and this madly erotic, madly inventive and madly mad showpiece.
I was only there for a few months when this incredible theatre company arrived called Pip Simmons Theatre Group, never heard of them but I was completely blown away. Visually, I had seen nothing like it in the theatre before — they did an incredible version of Dracula. Two girls came on naked and then got dressed to strip music, there was blood everywhere, sex, white doves…. it was a pageant of truly exciting theatre, I watched agog every single night.
…a show within a show, ostensibly a musical entertainment taking place in a concentration camp. The concert party, consisting of prisoners performing under the threatening baton of a Nazi guard, begins with a short "operetta" entitled "The Dream of Anne Frank." The final image imprints itself indelibly — the doomed musicians seem to sit on the clouds like the heavenly host in a Giotto painting. Hatred has been purged. Simmons here surpasses Grotowski.
An Die Musik is unequivocally my most terrifying theatrical experience.
With a devastating lack of sentimentality, the company explored the fate of those inmates of a nameless concentration camp who, having been made the fools and playthings of the SS, were finally forced to play themselves to their deaths. I remember the rigorous selflessness of the actors — as near to self-abasement as you would dare to go — and their austere dignity as, naked and playing their instruments, they entered the gas chamber. I remember the hopeless beauty of the music, Schubert and Beethoven, and the emotional and ethical challenges the piece presented to its audience.
The Circle Rep years — a Broadway hit with Irene Worth and Christopher Walken, a resident design post in New York, and a run of Chicago and off-Broadway acclaim.
A shift west to Seattle's regional theaters, then Washington, D.C. — where a first academic post begins alongside the design work.
A decade based at the University of Michigan, with award-winning regional work from Pittsburgh to Arizona to Broadway.
More than two decades at the University of Connecticut — Broadway design continues alongside a deepening commitment to costume history, exhibitions, and international leadership.
Retirement from full-time teaching, but not from the work — continued exhibitions, writing, remote teaching, and a move to Seattle to be near family.
A handful of additional productions with exact years still pending.
