Pratt fashion alumnus Paul Tazewell, costume designer for the Broadway musical Hamilton, won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design at the Tony Awards ceremony held on June 12 at the Beacon Theatre in Manhattan.
Tazewell, originally from Ohio, left home in 1982 to study fashion design at Pratt Institute. He made the transition from fashion design to costume design and is now an acclaimed costume designer for theater, dance, and opera, with credits including Dr. Zhivago, A Raisin in the Sun, and NBC’s The Wiz Live!
Over the course of his career, Tazewell has received a total of six Tony Award nominations for costume design including Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk, The Color Purple, In the Heights, Memphis, A Streetcar Named Desire, and now Hamilton. This would be his second award for Hamilton, having already received the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Costume Design.
Image: A scene from Hamilton (photo by Joan Marcus, courtesy of Atlantic Records)