march 17.2000 »
most plays the costumes are meant
to draw little attention, except to
mark the personal style of the charac
ters and the era. The maxim doesn’t
B i d true, however, in Blues for an Alabama
I y, the Portland Center Stage production
t ends its run March 18. This glorious
k at the lives of five African Americans
prohibition-era Harlem has as its main
aracter a flashy gay man, who just happens
be a costume designer for the Cotton Club
d diva Josephine Baker. But for the onstage
signer (played to exquisite perfection by
mothy Piggee) to wear and exhibit his cre-
ions, the costume shop manager for P C S had
t to envision them.
Enter designer Jeff Cone, a muscular, beard-
I J bear whose towering size leads one to envi-
I on him as a football star more than a cos-
limer. In fact, Cone is the son of an ex-Green
ay Packer and Hall o f Famer. (His earliest
emory, he says, is of “my father taking me by
e hand and taking me into the Green Bay
'ackers locker room. 1 remember all these
Enormous naked men all around m e!”)
Growing up, Cone had little interest in the
me of football himself.
“1 was a big old disappointment,” he notes
ith a grin. “I have home movies of me in a
iniature Packers uniform with a helmet and
¡11 that stuff. I looked totally perplexed. 1 had
ot an inkling of interest in sports."
Instead, his interest was in art, and his tai
nt was supported by his grandfather, a com
ercial artist. After attending Clemson Uni-
ersity and studying psychology, acting and
ostume design, Cone was accepted into the
niversity of South Carolina on the strength
f his graphic design portfolio.
The head of the theater department
offered me a graduate assistantship if 1 would
ajor in theater,” Cone recalls. “The good
hing about the assistantship is that 1 designed
ihows and realized those designs. It wasn’t all
lass projects. In my case, I produced almost
verything that I designed. I learned all about
making patterns, how to make costumes fit a
particular body and how to make them look
ike the costume sketch.”
During his college days, Cone was outed to
is parents by his sister, who is— ironically—
ow a closeted lesbian herself, he says.
“I believe she is closeted because she saw
he incredible trauma that occurred when she
uted me,” he says.
After his parents confronted him about his
lomosexuality, Cone was cut off from all con-
act with and support from his family, a situa-
ion that continued for 10 years. The turning
aint in their relationship came after his moth-
r helped care for a cousin dying of A ID S.
A profile of Portland Center Stage
costume designer Jeff Cone
by
A n dy M angels
“I think that made my mom think,” he says.
“We have a cordial, strained relationship now.”
Cone was also involved in gay politics at
U SC , part of a group of students who sued the
college to establish a gay student alliance.
“We went to federal court, and
the judge ruled that they had
to let us do that. We were
setting precedents” he
recalls, noting with a
smile that “nobody
really knew what to
do with me.”
He became the
first student in the
college’s history to
graduate with a mas
ter of fine arts degree
in theater.
Toward his goal of
working in professional
theater, Cone applied for a
job with Atlanta’s Alliance
Theatre, a major regional group.
Although hired as a journeyman in the
costume shop, after he showed his portfolio to
the artistic director Cone was given the oppor
tunity to design the costumes for Larry
Kramer’s The Normal Heart. He also worked on
J E W E L A. R O B I N S O N
Multimillion $ Producer
O F F I C E (503) 2 8 1 -4 0 4 0
V O I C E M A IL (503) 3 0 1 -4 2 8 3
E - M A I L Jewel2U@teleport.com
730 N.E. 10th Avenue
fortland, OR 97212__
Pruden tial
Northw«*»
Pearl Cleage’s first play, Flyin’ West, and later
helped costume her second show, Blues for an
Alabama Sky (with Phylicia Rashad)..
After 10 years designing 25 productions in
Atlanta, Cone accepted an offer from
the Seattle Opera. He became
the head “cutter” (the person
who patterns and supervis
es the construction of
costumes) as well as
the costume coordi
nator for several
shows. He didn’t
work on any
designs, however;
he "was taking a
little creative reju
venation time.”
Shortly after the
costume shop went
union and Cone lost all
of his benefits, he got a
call out of the blue from
Creon Thome, the production
manager for Portland Center Stage,
asking him if he would consider the position of
costume shop manager.
As part of the enticement to take the job,
Thome offered Cone the costume design job
B A ndy M angels is a longtime entertainment
writer with three books plus hundreds of comic
books and magazine articles to his credit. You can
write him at AMangelsSW @aol.com.
See my
E xc lu s ive
Listings
on our
webpage
http://www.
pru-nw.com
Mike 't haler author of the Black Lagoon s e r i e s will be
signing copies o f his new series Heaven and Mirth
Saturday, March 4 at 2:00pm
f Saturday March 18, at 11:30 storyteller Roger L'oles
will entertain children and adults with interactive tales
M 0 SK
PAMES
on Bus Stop, the fourth play in
P C S’s 1999-2000 season.
“I was ready to design again,” says
Cone.
Once he got to Portland, he was
excited to also be offered the design
job on Blues for an Alabama Sky. The
show has changed substantially since
its world premiere in Atlanta, and it’s
a costume designer’s dream. Blues has
25 costumes, 12 of which are worn by
Timothy Piggee.
“I gave Timothy’s character the bur
den of showing the passage of time,
since he’s in virtually every single scene,
and most scenes take place on different
days,” Cone explains. “I decided Ithat], as
a flamboyant gay costume designer who
dresses in an eccentric fashion, we could
rationalize him having a large wardrobe.
He changes his shirt, neckwear and vest in
every scene.”
The strong colors of Piggee s wardrobe
also show that he stands out from the
crowd, even in 1930s Harlem. The cos
tumes are all designed for quick removal,
with snaps and Velcro fasteners holding them
in place onstage.
Cone is emphatic that he couldn’t accom
plish his work without the exceptional staff at
PCS.
“I have a craftsperson, a cutter, two stitch
ers, a wardrobe person and a wig person on
staff. I make sure they have everything they
need to bring the costume designs to fruition
and allow the show to run,” he explains.
With the season’s final production, Gunshy,
opening in late March— and his imminent
visit to the Seattle Opera to work on its sum
mer season megaproduction of Ring of the
Nibelung — Cone has already discussed his
return for next year’s PCS season. He will be
designing next season’s fourth show, Closer,
and the final show, A New Brain (the new gay-
themed musical from the author of Falsettos).
He’s also enthusiastically optimistic.
“We have a new artistic director, Chris
Coleman, who’s out and gay. He’s brilliant,
both theatrically and generally speaking, and
I’m feeling like for the first time in my life I’m
in the right place at the right time,” Cone
says. “I’m excited to be working with and
designing at PCS. Time will tell, but I feel like
the potential for really exciting, life-affecting
theater...the potential is there. I’m really look
ing forward to the future.”
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