Full Article Text
Dressed for excess
With Boy George playing performance artist Leigh Bowery,
Taboo gave us the year's gayest costumes By Michael Gillz
roadway offered many queer
pleasures in 2003: Hugh Jack
man embodying Peter Allen in
The Boy From Oz, Robert
Sean Leonard kissing Scott
Foley in Richard Greenberg's The Violet
Hour, Jefferson Mays dazzling as a Ger
man cross-dresser in I Am My Own
Wife, the sexually confused puppets in
the musical Avenue Q.
But no show's costumes were more
out there than the giddily over-the-top
spectacles on display in Boy George's
Taboo. Designer Mike Nicholls was nom
inated for an Olivier (Britain's equivalent
of the Tony) when it opened in London's
West End, and both he and his Broad
way collaborator, Bobby Pearce, are
likely nominees come Tony time.
Nicholls was very faithful to the spir
it of designer Leigh Bowery, who creat
ed his original costumes in the '70s and
'80s and is played by George in the
show. A friend of both artists, Nicholls
shopped for fabrics in the sanle shops Bowery used and then enlisted Bow
ery's old friends to help with the con
struction. But for New York, the guid
ing principle was "bigger and better."
(That includes the budget, which
Nicholls says went from about $27,000
in the United Kingdom to hundreds of
thousands in New York.)
"That's where Bobby was so great,
because Bobby knows Broadway and
he was able to help me translate that,"
says Nicholls. "The fabrics got more
glittery, and some shapes got slightly
exaggerated, even more than they were
on Leigh."
Pearce says one of the hardest tasks
was re-creating these fabulous cos
tumes for a long-running show. "The
kids used to put these outfits together
from stuff they would literally steal or
pull out of garbage cans," says Pearce,
who, like Nicholls, is gay. "They'd wear
them one night, and whatever they
came home with, they came home
with. That was the end of that outfit.
THE ADVOCATE 180 I JANUARY 20, 2004 Some of Bowery's clothes were made
the same way. It was very difficult for
us to come up with something that
would work eight shows a week and
still look like an original."
The result is one of Broadway's
most demanding-and rewarding
shows from the point of view of a cos
tume designer. "This show has 237 cos
tumes, which is an awful lot," says
Pearce. "I think Phantom of the Opera
has 225. There's a crew of 12 people
that come in daily just to maintain the
costumes."
With a u.K. road tour scheduled to
run through July, Taboo is keeping the
spirit of the attention-getting Bowery
alive even longer.
"You could never miss him," says
Nicholls, who met Bowery in the real
Taboo club and is referring to his per
sonality and his towering physique. "He
would be spinning around and shriek
ing, so he was a big presence."
A lesser star might be abashed by
the prospect of stepping into Bowery's
platforms. But not Boy George,
Nicholls says: "Anything that can have
more glitter and be more extravagant,
[Boy George 1 is always up for that." •
Giltz is a contributor to such
pUblications as the New York Post.
With Boy George playing performance artist Leigh Bowery,
Taboo gave us the year's gayest costumes By Michael Gillz
roadway offered many queer
pleasures in 2003: Hugh Jack
man embodying Peter Allen in
The Boy From Oz, Robert
Sean Leonard kissing Scott
Foley in Richard Greenberg's The Violet
Hour, Jefferson Mays dazzling as a Ger
man cross-dresser in I Am My Own
Wife, the sexually confused puppets in
the musical Avenue Q.
But no show's costumes were more
out there than the giddily over-the-top
spectacles on display in Boy George's
Taboo. Designer Mike Nicholls was nom
inated for an Olivier (Britain's equivalent
of the Tony) when it opened in London's
West End, and both he and his Broad
way collaborator, Bobby Pearce, are
likely nominees come Tony time.
Nicholls was very faithful to the spir
it of designer Leigh Bowery, who creat
ed his original costumes in the '70s and
'80s and is played by George in the
show. A friend of both artists, Nicholls
shopped for fabrics in the sanle shops Bowery used and then enlisted Bow
ery's old friends to help with the con
struction. But for New York, the guid
ing principle was "bigger and better."
(That includes the budget, which
Nicholls says went from about $27,000
in the United Kingdom to hundreds of
thousands in New York.)
"That's where Bobby was so great,
because Bobby knows Broadway and
he was able to help me translate that,"
says Nicholls. "The fabrics got more
glittery, and some shapes got slightly
exaggerated, even more than they were
on Leigh."
Pearce says one of the hardest tasks
was re-creating these fabulous cos
tumes for a long-running show. "The
kids used to put these outfits together
from stuff they would literally steal or
pull out of garbage cans," says Pearce,
who, like Nicholls, is gay. "They'd wear
them one night, and whatever they
came home with, they came home
with. That was the end of that outfit.
THE ADVOCATE 180 I JANUARY 20, 2004 Some of Bowery's clothes were made
the same way. It was very difficult for
us to come up with something that
would work eight shows a week and
still look like an original."
The result is one of Broadway's
most demanding-and rewarding
shows from the point of view of a cos
tume designer. "This show has 237 cos
tumes, which is an awful lot," says
Pearce. "I think Phantom of the Opera
has 225. There's a crew of 12 people
that come in daily just to maintain the
costumes."
With a u.K. road tour scheduled to
run through July, Taboo is keeping the
spirit of the attention-getting Bowery
alive even longer.
"You could never miss him," says
Nicholls, who met Bowery in the real
Taboo club and is referring to his per
sonality and his towering physique. "He
would be spinning around and shriek
ing, so he was a big presence."
A lesser star might be abashed by
the prospect of stepping into Bowery's
platforms. But not Boy George,
Nicholls says: "Anything that can have
more glitter and be more extravagant,
[Boy George 1 is always up for that." •
Giltz is a contributor to such
pUblications as the New York Post.