TDF, the not-for-profit service organization for the performing arts, proudly announced recently the 2022 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awardees: Fred Voelpel, Eugene Lee, Dede Ayite, Michael Curry, and Caroline F. Siedle. “These wonderful awardees were originally chosen by the committee for the 2020 awards ceremony. Sadly, the pandemic put that and last year’s ceremony on hold, but we’re thrilled to finally celebrate these incredible artists,” said Stephen Cabral, Director of the TDF Costume Collection. The awardees were selected by the TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards Voting Committee, which consists of leading members of the theatrical costume design community and will be presented through the TDF Costume Collection at a ceremony on October 7 at The Edison Ballroom in NYC.
The TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed annually to a costume designer who has achieved great distinction and demonstrated a mastery of the art. The award is presented to a designer whose work embodies the qualities of excellence represented in Sharaff’s lifework: a keen sense of color, a feeling for material and texture, an eye for shape and form, and a sure command of the craft. Fred Voelpel was just such an artist: a master of set design, costume design, and lighting design. His award will be presented posthumously, as noted by Cabral, “We were very upset to lose Fred Voelpel this past June. I had been in contact with Fred, and he was happy to have been chosen for the award and had been looking forward to attending. He will be sorely missed.”
Born in 1927 in Peoria, IL, Voelpel was educated at the University of Illinois and the Yale School of Drama (MFA 1953), where he studied with Donald Oenslager. After Yale, he was selected for studies at Interlochen, the famous school of the arts in northwest Michigan. In 1956, he arrived in NYC at the age of 29 and began designing costumes and sets.
His Broadway credits including for Costume Design Bring Back Birdie, Seascape, Two By Two, Oh! Calcutta!, Tiger at the Gates, Drat! The Cat!, Peterpat, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, A Murderer Among Us, Sophie, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, No Strings (with Donald Brooks). For Scenic Design, Lighting Design as well as Costumes: The Young Abe Lincoln (Scenic, Costume and Lighting Design), Vintage ’60 (Scenic and Costume Design) and From A to Z (Scenic, Costume and Lighting Design), Einstein and the Polar Bear (Scenic Design), Very Good Eddie (Scenic and Lighting Design), And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little (Scenic Design), Cop-Out (Scenic and Costume Design), The Rothschilds (Scenery and Costume Supervisor). He also designed extensively both regionally and Off Broadway.
Voelpel designed many productions for The National Theatre of the Deaf, including the Broadway productions of Sganarelle, and Songs From Milk Wood . He was the resident designer for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, The National Theatre of the Deaf, and for The Lost Colony on Roanoke Island. Starting in 1969, he was also the resident designer for the National Playwrights Conference, and he joined the faculty of the National Theatre Institute when it was founded in 1970.
The winner of the 1970 Drama Desk Outstanding Set Design Award for The Memory Bank, he was also nominated for a 1975 Drama Desk Costume Design for the production of Seascape. He was responsible for the redesign of the NYU School of the Arts fledgling Design Department with colleagues Oliver Smith and Lloyd Burlingame. While teaching costume and scenic design there, he won NYU’s most prestigious teaching award called the “Great Teacher Award.”
The Robert L. B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design honors its namesake and symbolizes Tobin’s passion, respect and esteem for the art of theatrical design. Recipients have achieved distinction in theatrical design and their work serves as an example of the beauty, feeling and empathy that’s created through true mastery of this art. Eugene Lee is truly such a master of his art.
Lee holds BFA degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon, an MFA from Yale and three honorary doctorates. He has been the production designer of Saturday Night Live since 1974. He has received the Tony Award, the American Theatre Wing’s Design Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Achievement, the Emmy Award, the Art Directors Guild Award and the Pell Award. He is currently represented on Broadway by the musical Wicked and has been inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in New York.
On Broadway, Lee has designed the scenery for Bright Star, Amazing Grace, The Velocity of Autumn, The Other Place, Glengarry Glen Ross, A Streetcar Named Desire, You’re Welcome America, The Homecoming, The Pirate Queen, Seussical, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Colin Quinn – An Irish Wake, Ragtime, On the Waterfront, Show Boat, The Hothouse, Agnes of God, The Little Prince and the Aviator, Merrily We Roll Along, Gilda Radner – Live From New York, Sweeney Todd, Some of My Best Friends, The Skin of Our Teeth, Candide, Dude, and Wilson in the Promise Land. Lee also has a number of Off-Broadway credits and he has been Resident Designer at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island for over 50 years, beginning with his long collaboration with founding Artistic Director Adrian Hall. Lee has also designed regionally at Long Wharf Theatre, The Huntington Theatre, Arena Stage, Hartford Stage, Seattle Rep, the Goodman Theatre, Dallas Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, the Alley Theatre and the McCarter Theatre Center. He also has numerous television and film credits.
The TDF/Kitty Leech Young Master Award is presented to a designer whose promising work has come to fruition. Honoring an early career designer, the award is given in recognition of Irene Sharaff’s wish to see young designers encouraged on their way to fully acknowledged success and excellence in the field. Dede Ayite is certainly an early career designer that has distinguished herself through her work.
Originally from Ghana, Ayite moved to the U.S. in her final years of high school. She attended Lehigh University. After graduating with a dual degree in theatre and behavioral neuroscience, she remained at Lehigh to run the scene shop, designing and managing student productions. She went on to graduate work at the Yale School of Drama in scenic design (MFA 2011).
Her initial post-grad stints included assisting Eugene Lee, as well as an apprenticeship at The Santa Fe Opera. She began to work as an assistant costume designer and her first Broadway credits were as an Associate Costume Designer to Clint Ramos on In Transit, Associate Costume Designer to Riccardo Hernández on The Gin Game and Assistant Costume Designer to Emilio Sosa on Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Clint Ramos recommended Ayite to director Robert O’Hara, which led to her costume design work on Slave Play, Mankind, Bella: An American Tall Tale, and The Wiz. To date, her Broadway credits are Topdog/Underdog, How I Learned to Drive, American Buffalo, Chicken & Biscuits, A Soldier’s Play, Slave Play, American Son, and Children of a Lesser God. Ayite has designed numerous Off-Broadway and regional productions.
She won the 2019 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Costume Design for By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, and was also nominated for the Lucille Lortel, AUDELCO, Drama Desk and Hewes Design Awards. She won the 2018 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Costume Design for School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play.
The TDF/Irene Sharaff Artisan Award recognizes an individual or company that has made an outstanding supportive contribution in the field of costume technology. Michael Curry is an award-winning visual artist and concept designer, known for his broad work in theatre and live entertainment.
Curry is sought out by the world’s top entertainment organizations, such as The Metropolitan Opera, Universal Studios, Cirque du Soleil and the International Olympic Committee to create large-scale spectacles. He has brought his vision to countless shows for Disney, including co-designing puppets and masks with Julie Taymor for The Lion King on Broadway as well as Frozen.
Along with Curry’s work in character and production design, he specializes in conceptual design, master planning and immersive environment programming. His forward-thinking has allowed him to be a predictor of new and innovative technologies and a leading fixture in the international art world. While working at a global scale, Curry embraces local styles, techniques and artists to fully integrate his creations into the communities and cultures for which he designs. For this reason, Curry is continually chosen to share his expertise and excellence with the world’s largest audiences.
The TDF/Irene Sharaff Memorial Tribute was created to recognize, celebrate and remember the artists who pioneered the art of costume design, setting the standard for years to come. Caroline F. Siedle (1867–1907) was one of the earliest designers to receive credit for her work in theatre programs; she has been called the first woman to achieve recognition as a professional costume designer. Born in England, Siedle established an atelier in New York City to serve the theatre trade, and designed costumes for many musicals, including Victor Herbert’s classic Babes in Toyland. She regularly worked for Lillian Russell and Julian Mitchell, the director of The Wizard of Oz show. Her earliest Broadway credit was for 1897’s The Wedding Day. She has 14 total Broadway credits in her short career. Siedle’s influential designs included those for the opera Dolly Varden in 1902 at the Herald Square Theatre, which re-popularized 1730s silhouettes, and the musical comedy Piff! Paff!! Pouf!!! in 1904 with its famous “Radium Ballet.” For that novelty number, the white frilly dresses of the eight “Pony Ballet” girls were coated with a luminous substance, which made the dancers glow “like gigantic fireflies” when the auditorium was darkened. Julian Mitchel noted, “Her ability to design amounted to genius.” At the time of her death at age 39, Siedle was the property mistress of The Metropolitan Opera.
