Don’t call it a comeback — the 1970s never left. At least, that’s how audiences felt when they entered the James Earl Jones Theater during the Broadway run of Bess Wohl‘s Tony-nominated memory play, Liberation. Wohl based the story on her own childhood experience growing up with a mother who was part of the ’70s feminist movement. And costume designer Qween Jean was tasked with turning the fashion clock back without falling into the kitsch that can accompany a decade known for its fashion faux pas.
“I don’t do kitschy,” Jean emphasizes when we spoke with her inside one of the Liberation dressing rooms days before the show played its final performance in January. “But I do love clothes, and with Liberation I felt called to search each and every character’s journey, and that meant creating a wardrobe for them that displayed their full arc.”
Her love for clothes — and Liberation‘s characters — clearly resonated with Tony voters. The show is among the five nominees for Best Costume Design in a Play, alongside the ’70s-set Dog Day Afternoon, Fallen Angels, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and The Balusters. And Jean is actually a double nominee this year, scoring a second nod for designing the costumes for the hit musical revival, Cats: The Jellicle Ball. They represent her first Tony nods after designing the costumes for over 80 theatrical productions.
Jean walked us through the arc of Liberation‘s many characters in an exclusive video interview that puts her costumes on full display. (Watch the video above.)
Jean’s nomination for Liberation is one of five nods that the play received overall including Best Play, Best Director for Whitney White, Best Featured Actress for Betsy Aidem, and Best Actress for Susannah Flood, who plays Wohl’s alter ego, Lizzie, the character that guides the audience back and forth in time, acting as narrator in the present day and character in the past. The flashbacks feature versions of the women who laughed, cried and argued alongside her mother in the Ohio gym where they held their meetings.
“For me personally, Liberation has brought up so many of the phenomenal and inspiring women in my life who have guided me on this journey thinking about human rights and the march for liberation,” Jean says. “We get to see how a group of everyday heroes creates community. To me, that’s at the heart of the story, and at the heart of this nation — being able to relate to each other and realize that we are all similar.”
Jean sourced Liberation‘s costumes from vintage clothing shops in New York and further afield, venturing to Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “We really wanted to find these vintage sanctuaries and leave no stone unturned,” she says. “We also wanted to create costumes that transported us right to the 1970s, but were also able to withstand the rigorous show schedule.
“Most importantly, we wanted our actors to have sustainable clothing that is armored to hold them up and help them best convey their characters and the story,” Jean adds. “For me, that’s the blessing and the gift of being able to create and share parts of our humanity that folks don’t often think about or consider.”
And being part of the Liberation family has made Jean realize that the 1970s aren’t that distant from what women are still fighting for today. “We all desire security, love, and to be free,” the costume designer says. “Liberation is an ongoing conversation about freedom that has unlocked a lot of things for me. More specifically, I think about in this moment how people are trying to maintain their freedom and their sanity. This play is a reminder to everyone that we cannot look away, and that we all have to be engaged as we organize, agitate, and liberate.”
This post was originally published on March 20; it has been updated to reflect Liberation’s five Tony nominations.
