^Richard Holcomb, 1986 NEW STAGECRAFT PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO TWO MUSICAL COMEDY COSTUME DESIGNS OF MILES WHITE by RICHARD H0LC014B, B.A. , M.A. A DISSERTATION IN FINE ARTS Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May, 1986 CONTENTS FIGURES ^^ CHAPTER I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL AND MILES WHITE'S CAREER AS COSTUME DESIGNER 1 Introduction 1 Vita-Miles White 4 A Brief History of the American Musical and Its Relationship to the New Stagecraft 12 Summary 32 II. A CHRONOLOGY OF MILES WHITE'S MUSICAL COMEDY DESIGN CAREER. 33 Chronology 36 Right This Way 36 Best Foot Forward 37 Oklahoma! 39 Ziegfeld Follies 40 Early to Bed 42 Allah Be Praised 43 Dream With Music 45 Bloomer Girl 46 Carousel 48 The Day Before Spring 49 Gypsy Lady 51 High Button Shoes 52 ii Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 54 Bless You All 55 Pal Joey 57 Three Wishes for Jamie 58 Two' s Company 59 Hazel Flagg 60 The Girl in Pink Tights 62 Ankles Aweigh 63 Jamaica 64 Oh, Captain! 65 Take Me Along 66 Bye, Bye, Birdie 67 The Unsinkable Molly Brown 68 Show Girl 69 Milk and Honey 71 A Quarter for the Ladies' Room 73 Tricks 73 Summary 74 III. AN ANALYSIS OF MILES WHITE'S COSTUME DESIGNS FROM TWO REPRESENTATIVE PLAYS: BLOOMER GIRL AND BYE, BYE, BIRDIE. 77 Bloomer Girl 79 Simplicity 81 Color 81 Rhythmic Patterns 88 Sculpture 92 Wit 94 iii Suggestion 96 Color 97 , Rhythmic Patterns 101 Sculpture 102 Wit 103 Synthesis 104 Color 105 Rhythmic Patterns 105 Sculpture 106 Wit 106 Bye, Bye, Birdie 107 Simplicity Ill Color Ill Rhythmic Patterns 115 Sculpture 120 Wit 123 Suggestion 126 Color 126 Rhythmic Patterns 134 Sculpture 139 Wit 142 Synthesis 144 Color 144 Rhythmic Patterns 145 Sculpture 145 Wit 146 iv IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION Summary ^ . Conclusion ,gQ BIBLIOGRAPHY ,cc 165 FIGURES 1. Mrs. Horatio Applegate 83 2. Octavia Applegate 84 3. Julia Applegate 85 4. Phoebe Applegate 86 5. Delia Applegate 87 6. Dolly Bloomer (red) 98 7. Dolly Bloomer (blue-green) 99 8. Bloomer Girls 100 9. Teen-age boys and reporters 113 10. Mae Peterson 114 11. Rose Grant 116 12. Teen girl Karen 127 13. Teen girl Leda 129 14. Teen boy Tracy 131 15. Teen boy Gary 133 VI CHAPTER I A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL AND MILES WHITE'S CAREER AS COSTUME DESIGNER Introduction As the only true American theatrical art form, the musical comedy, which traces its origin to foreign operettas and musical revues, has been the subject of extensive published literature. Although insights into elements of plot, staging, scenery, cast, themes, and songs are found in the published literature, very little is found about costume designs or about the designers of the caliber of Miles White. The years between 1915 and the late 1940s were years of develop­ ment and of growth in popularity for both American musical comedy and the New Stagecraft movement reflected in the career of White. This parallel growth of the American musical and of the influence of the New Stagecraft movement has been attributed to certain shared factors. In the 1922 work. Continental Stagecraft, Kenneth Macgowan and Robert Edmond Jones noted that the New Stagecraft movement provided a record of the use of symbols, sculpture, significant form, and simplicity to add Realism as well as Expressionism to theatrical production. Jones, Kenneth Macgowan and Robert Edmond Jones, Continental Stagecraft (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1922), pp. 5-53. 1 who brought this influence to America in his design for The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife in 1915, paved the way for a new generation of designers. Ethan Mordden, in Better Foot Forward, puts these years of development and growth into a more comprehensive perspective: The musical theatre entered its finest era in the forties. Elementary lessons in form and stagecraft had been learned; it remained only to utilize them in dramatic penetration. To some, these last few years before Oklahoma! in 1943 represent the final hours of the musicals infancy, leading in clear steps to the great Rodgers and Hammerstein triumph and exultantly moving on from there. But the first half of the forties had more than Oklahoma! to prove its maturity. Some of the big ones even preceded it, for Oklahoma 1 was less a culmination in itself than a reassurance that this culmination had already come about. The American musical, the most complex of all theatre art forms, combined vaudeville, opera, drama, and ballet in a fluid yet compressed manner. Design for the musical stage demanded a sympathetic under­ standing and passion for those forms. The costume in the American musical was used to reveal character, period, and mood of the play as well as the stylistic conventions established by the designers. The use of symbols, sculpture, significant form, and simplicity referred to by Macgowan and Jones was evident in the costume designs of Miles White, a second generation designer, who was linked to the movements noted above by his association and collaboration with Norman Bel Geddes, a first generation American designer. 2 Ethan Mordden, Better Foot Forward, the History of American Musical Theatre (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976), p. 182. This study will investigate and analyze two Broadway musical comedy costume design works from the career of Miles White, whose complete vita may be found at the end of this introduction. White's life work spanned thirty-five years and embraced designs for twenty- nine musical comedies and revues, six plays, seven ballets, ten circuses, numerous night club acts, and five movies. As a costume designer of major magnitude during the Golden Age of the American musical, his work warrants study as being representative of the period. The two productions chosen for study are Bloomer Girl (1944) and Bye, Bye, Birdie (1960), both of which are representative of White's work and were produced within his period of greatest popularity between 1943 and 1961. The study of White's work will proceed through analysis of available renderings, color swatches, photos, reviews, and actual costumes. The study will not attempt to decide whether the designs were appropriate for the production, but instead it will attempt to relate White's style to the New Stagecraft principles of simplicity, suggestion, and synthesis. Chapter One contains a brief parallel historical account of the American Musical and the New Stagecraft movement both of which, taken together, place White's career in context. Chapter Two offers a chronology of White's musical comedy produc­ tions, which places Bloomer Girl and Bye, Bye, Birdie, representative of White's work, into their historical and creative perspectives within White's career. Chapter Three presents the analysis of Bloomer Girl and Bye, Bye, Birdie, and includes a discussion of the costume design in these works as related to the New Stagecraft principles through color, rhythmic patterns, sculpture, and wit. Plates of cost\ame design renderings for these productions can be found here. Chapter Four is a summary of the study and its conclusions. The Bibliography includei^. interviews with the designer, his co­ workers, and other designers. It should be noted that renderings and photographs of the original costumes were found in the Van Damm photo collection in the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, the Muse\im of the City of New York, the Old Jail Foundation, the theatre design collection of the University of Arizona Department of Theatre, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Arsenal, and White's personal collection of renderings, swatchbooks, costumes, and costume plots. Various disser­ tations on musical comedy or designers were also consulted, as well as works by Nathan Knobler, Don Fabun, and James Schinneller. Other sources include writings by prominent experts such as Robert Edmond Jones, Howard Bay, Irene Sharaff, Agnes de Mille, and Jo Mielziner. Vita-Miles White White, a native Californian, was educated in Oakland, where he was born 27 July 1914 to Carlos G. White, an attorney, and Verna Edgren 3 White, a housewife. His two brothers Duwain Houston White, deceased. 3 All information found m the vita was taken from personal inter­ views with Miles White on 8, 9, and 10 December, 1981. Other sources used in this vita will be cited. and Carlos Wadsworth White, an attorney in San Jose, California, did not share White's interest in art. Influenced by the cultural ten­ dencies of his mother and her father, an artist in his own right as well as founder of the Swedish Baptist Church in America, White's childhood held many positive experiences. His artistic training started in Piedmont High School (1929-1933), where he had the opportunity for individualized study of art and art techniques with a trained artist through a program with the University of California at Oakland. His training included exposure to the works of the Impressionists and Matisse as well as practical experience and exposure to artistic trends. Upon graduation from high school (1933), he entered San Mateo Junior College that same year, and later (1934) enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. White's driving ambition was to succeed in art and he concen­ trated on his art-related courses in college. He became intrigued by the design and fashion of glamorous clothing and followed the path from general art to clothing design. His college experiences included the design of one costume for a college production of Maxwell Ander­ son's Elizabeth the Queen. Prior to this experience. White was inter­ ested only in designing clothing. Now, with the new interest in costume design.