William Ivey Long
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William Ivey Long is an American costume designer. He was born in 1947 to William Ivey Long Sr. a Winthrop University professor, and stage director, and his wife Mary, who was a high school theatre teacher, actress and playwright. His father was the founder of the Winthrop University theatre department. William grew up in Rock Hill, South Carolina and has two younger siblings, a brother Robert who is a theatre architect and a sister Laura who is also involved in numerous theatre activities. Upon graduation from high school William attended the College of William and Mary where he studied history and graduated in 1969. He then attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a PhD in art history. While at this university he met visiting professor Betty Smith who suggested he apply to the design program at Yale University. Upon his acceptance to Yale he left the PhD program at UNC and began to study set design at the Yale School of Drama. It was here that he met Sigourney Weaver (his roommate at the time) Wendy Wasserstein, Meryl Streep, Christopher Durang and Paul Rudnick, who were all also students of the University. While at Yale he studied under designer Ming Cho Lee, whom he has credited with being a major influence on his work. Upon his graduation from Yale in 1975,he made the move to New York City where he worked for couturier Charles James as an unpaid apprentice until James's death in 1978. After a few months of selling dolls a friend of his from Yale, Karen Schulz, who was the set designer for a revival of Nikolai Gogol's The Inspector General, suggested that Long be hired to do costume designs for the show, this was Long's first Broadway production. Since then he has celebrated being the costume designer for over 50 different Broadway shows. A Streetcar named Desire marked his landmark 50th. He currently has six shows running on Broadway: A Streetcar Named Desire; Sweet Charity; La Cage Aux Folles; John Water’s Hairspray; The Producers; and Chicago. He has been nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning four (for Nine, Crazy for You, The Producers, and Hairspray). He has also won the Drama Desk Award for outstanding costume design for Hairspray, The Producers, Guys and Dolls, Lend Me a Tenor, and Nine. In 200 Long was chosen by the National Theatre Conference as its "Person of the Year" and was honored with the "Legend of Fashion" Award by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2003. Most recently he was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in January of 2006. He remains active in many local activities throughout the state of North Carolina including working with Paul Green's The Lost Colony Outdoor Drama in Manteo, North Carolina which he and his family have been a part of since he was a young child.
[edit] Works
Long has designed for over fifty Broadway productions, including:
- The Inspector General - 1978
- The 1940's Radio Hour - 1979
- Passione - 1980
- Mass Appeal - 1981
- Nine - 1982
- The Tap Dance Kid - 1983
- Play Memory - 1984
- End of the World - 1984
- Smile - 1986
- Sleight of Hand - 1987
- Mail - 1988
- Eastern Seaboard - 1989
- Lend Me a Tenor - 1989
- Welcome to the Club - 1989
- Six Degrees of Separation - 1990
- The Homecoming - 1991
- Crazy For You - 1992
- Private Lives - 1992
- Guys and Dolls - 1992
- Laughter on the 23rd Floor - 1993
- Picnic - 1994
- Smokey Joe's Cafe - 1995
- Company - 1995
- Big - 1996
- Chicago - 1996
- Steel Pier - 1997
- King David - 1997
- 1776 - 1997
- Cabaret - 1998
- Annie Get Your Gun - 1999
- The Civil War - 1999
- Epic Proportions - 1999
- Swing! - 1999
- Contact - 2000
- The Music Man - 2000
- The Man Who Came to Dinner - 2000
- Seussical - 2000
- The Producers - 2001
- Thou Shalt Not - 2001
- 45 Seconds From Broadway - 2001
- Hairspray - 2002
- Little Shop of Horrors - 2003
- The Boy From Oz - 2003
- Never Gonna Dance - 2003
- Twentieth Century - 2004
- The Frogs - 2004
- La Cage aux Folles - 2004
- A Streetcar Named Desire - 2005
- Sweet Charity - 2005
- The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial - 2006
- Grey Gardens - 2006
- Princesses - 2006
He has also designed for the following non-Broadway productions
- Me Jack, You Jill - 1976
- Face Value - 1990
[edit] Off-Broadway
- Two Small Bodies
- Conjuring an Event
- The Vienna Notes
- Mass Appeal
- Passione
- True West
- Hunting Scenes from Lower Bavaria
- Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and The Actor's Nightmare
- Twelve Dreams
- Poor Little Lambs
- American Passion
- The Lady and the Clarinet
- Hey, Ma...Kaye Ballard
- After the Fall
- The Marriage of Bette and Boo
- Hamlet
- Principia Scriptoriae
- Wenceslas Square
- Italian American Reconciliation
- Eleemosynary
- Assassins
- The Food Chain
- Splendora
- Tovah: Out of Her Mind
- The Mystery of Irma Vep
- La Terrasse
- Contact
- Godspell
- The Syringa Tree
- A Bad Friend
- Valhalla
- Grey Gardens
Long has designed for five films, namely:
- Life with Mikey - 1993
- The Cutting Edge - 1992
- Curtain Call - 1999
- Chop Suey - 2001
- The Producers - 2005
And for television:
- Ask Me Again - 1989
- Crazy for You - 1999
- The Man Who Came to Dinner - 2000
Long has also costumed for Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage Hotel, Leonard Bernstein's operas A Quiet Place and Trouble in Tahiti, and ballets at the New York City Ballet for Peter Martins, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp.