Tony Overseers Withdraw Best Costume Design Nomination from Loquasto for RAGTIME

The New York Times is reporting that the Tony Awards overseers (members of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League) have decided to withdraw the nomination for Best Costume Design from Santo Loquasto for his work on Ragtime on the basis that he, along with his team, created similar designs for the original 1998 production.

Writes the Times: "Costume designs that "substantially duplicate" work from a prior production are not eligible for Tony Awards, according to the Tony rulebook, but no one involved with "Ragtime" or the Tony Awards made a determination about Mr. Loquasto's designs before they were announced on May 4 as among the four nominees for best costume design of a musical."

The American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League explain in a joint statement:

"We learned this too late to remove the costumes from consideration by the nominators, but feel that we cannot allow the designs to remain in contention this year, and we must regretfully withdraw them from consideration as a nominee in the best costume design of a musical category," according to the statement. "There will be no replacement made for the nomination, and voters will vote for one of the three remaining nominees." The other nominees are Marina Draghici for "Fela!," Paul Tazewell for "Memphis," and Matthew Wright for "La Cage Aux Folles."

To read the full report in the New York Times, click here.

The Tony Awards Nominations were announced Tuesday, May 4th and the Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from Radio City Music Hall on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 13, 2010.