- - Paul Tazewell’s 'Wicked' Costumes Went Viral. That Was Just His Latest Milestone

Shannon CarlinJanuary 27, 2026 at 8:02 AM

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Credit - Tracy Nguyen—The New York Times/Redux

Over the course of his nearly 35-year career, costume designer Paul Tazewell has helped change the theater landscape for the better. While he’s recently been in the news for his conversation-sparking work on Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films, his legacy in costuming is long.

In 1996, Tazewell made his Broadway debut with Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. The groundbreaking musical revue, conceived by director George C. Wolfe and choreographer and dancer Savion Glover, told the story of Black America, from the Middle Passage to the rise of hip-hop, through innovative tap dancing.

The show, a cultural phenomenon which ran from 1996 to 1999, posed an interesting challenge for Tazewell: to create costumes that were not only historically accurate, but also functional for Glover and the other performers. “This wasn’t the tap that we’d seen in a production of 42nd Street,” says Tazewell, 61. “It was just about how the percussive sound of tap could be used to create poetic representations of Black Americans.”

Like the Tony Award-winning musical itself, Tazewell’s costumes celebrated the Black experience and showcased why these stories deserved a place on Broadway. It also turned Tazewell into the go-to costume designer for productions that, like Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk, wanted to make Broadway more inclusive onstage and behind the scenes. His most notable credits include The Color Purple, Memphis, and Caroline, or Change, as well Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and Hamilton, which, in 2016, landed Tazewell his first Tony. (Last year, he won his second for Death Becomes Her, the musical comedy based on the 1992 Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn movie of the same name.)

Tazewell considers it a privilege to have worked on so many productions led by Black and Latino creators and performers. But “because of the color of my skin,” he says, “I think that there was an assumption that I was more connected to those stories.” For a period of time, he felt pigeonholed. “As a creative person, my hope was to expand in all ways, to be able to show my sensibility in any style,” he says.

It was Hollywood that gave Tazewell a chance to show the full range of his talents, with projects like Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of West Side Story and, most recently, Chu’s two-part adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked.

With the Wicked films, Tazewell was tasked with reimagining the great and powerful world of Oz for a new audience. No easy task, given that, like many people, Tazewell has considered the Wizard of Oz to be an important touchstone for him since he was five years old. (Not to mention, he had already taken a trip down the yellow brick road for 2015’s The Wiz Live!) In creating the costumes for the Wicked films, Tazewell decided to embrace his nostalgia and use it to his advantage. “Going from that magical sepia tone opening up into a technicolor world, I remember how that made me feel as a child,” he says. “My job was, ‘How can I have that feeling recreated for an audience with our retelling?’”

From Glinda’s cotton-candy-colored bubble dress to Elphaba’s signature black hat, Tazewell’s Wicked creations helped earn him the 2025 Academy Award for Best Costume Design, making him the first Black man to ever receive the honor, and only the second Black person to win the award in the Academy’s 97-year history. “I have never experienced such a moment of validation for myself and for my work,” he says. “When I look in the mirror, what’s reflected back is truer, more loving. It’s so meaningful.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”