Costumes on Display at the Performing Arts Library

At the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery, the League of Professional Theatre Women and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts are presenting a beautiful exhibit Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance. The exhibit features videos and scenic design renderings and best of all of a number of costumes worn in operas and modern musics. My favorites were:

*Helene Pons' costume for Octavian's Presentation of the Rose Ceremony costume worn by Blanche Thebon in the Met's Der Rosenkavalier
*Franne Lee's Mrs. Lovett's Worst Pies costume worn by Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd
*Irene Sharaff's Mrs. Anna's ballgown worn by Gertrude Lawrence in The King and I
*Susan Hilferty's Milky White worn in the revival of Into the Woods
*Franne Lee's and Judith Dolan's white and pink lambs worn in the NYCO Candide
*Ann Houlde Ward's Beauty's yellow ballgown from Beauty and the Beast
*Susan Hilferty's Galinda's blue ballgown worn by Kristen Chenoweth in Wicked

The exhibit runs from November 17, 2008 through May 2, 2009 and of course, is free. On Monday, January 12, at 6 p.m., Susan Hilferty will discuss her work in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the Performing Arts Library.