The Theatre Development Fund (TDF) has announced that six-time Tony Award-winning costume designer Catherine Zuber and scenic designer Tony Straiges are among the 2017 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards recipients. Zuber is being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for Costume Design, and Straiges will be awarded the Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Sustained Excellence in Theatrical Design.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony April 28 at 6:30 PM at the Edison Ballroom in New York, located at 240 West 47th Street.
Zuber has designed the costumes for 48 Broadway productions and has won the Tony Award for Best Costume for The King and I (2015), The Royal Family (2009), South Pacific (2008), The Coast of Utopia (2007), Awake and Sing (2006), and The Light in the Piazza (2005). Her six additional Tony nominations include Golden Boy (2012), Born Yesterday (2011), How to Succeed…(2011), Seascape (2005), Dinner at Eight (2002), and Twelfth Night (1998). For this season, she designed the costumes for Oslo and War Paint.
Straiges has designed the sets for 17 Broadway musicals, plays, and specials, as well as numerous regional productions. He won a Tony Award for his set design of Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and was nominated for the sets for Into the Woods (1987). His other Broadway credits include Enchanted April (2003), Golden Child (1998), Shimada (1992), I Hate Hamlet (1991), Artist Descending a Staircase (1989), Dangerous Games (1989), Rumors (1988), Long Day's Journey into Night (1986), Copperfield (1981), Harold and Maude (1980), King Richard III (1979), Ice Dancing (1978), A History of the American Film (1978), and Timbuktu! (1978).
In addition to recognizing Zuber and Straiges, the April 28 ceremony will honor costume designer Paloma Young (Bandstand and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) with the TDF/Kitty Leech Young Master Award (formerly the TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award), and Ernest Young (Penn & Fletcher Embroidery) with the TDF/Irene Sharaff Artisan Award.
The ceremony will also offer a special memorial tribute to the designing team MOTLEY, which comprised designers Margaret Harris, Sophie Harris, and Elizabeth Montgomery Wilmot.
The awards are presented through Theatre Development Fund’s Costume Collection.
