Interview: Theatre Life with Anita Yavich

Today’s subject Anita Yavich is currently living her theatre life both locally and on Broadway. Her costume designs can currently be seen in Roundabout Theatre Company’s current production of Yellow Face and starting October 25th her work will be onstage at Kennedy Center in the Opera House with Washington National Opera’s (WNO) production of Fidelio. The show runs through November 4th.

Anita’s costumes have previously been seen at WNO in Aida, Salome, Das Rheingold, and Die Walküre.

Her work has been seen at some of the finest opera companies all over the world. Select opera credits include Cyrano de Bergerac at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, Les Troyens at the Metropolitan Opera, Steve Reich’s Three Tales at the Vienna Festival and international tour, Madama Butterfly at Houston Grand Opera and Grand Théâtre de Genève, and Der Fliegende Holländer and The Silver River at Spoleto Festival USA.

Equally at home designing on Broadway, her past credits include Chinglish, Venus in Fur, and Anna in the Tropics.

In 2006, Anita received the prestigious Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Costume Design.

Costume design is an art that I think is very misunderstood because the general audience thinks you can just buy everything off the rack. It takes many people to create what you see on the performers. It begins with the designs from a true artisan like Anita Yavich and then the process of building etc begins. Next time you go to a production, particularly a large scale musical or opera, consider the amount of work it takes to costume a company of 60 or more.

Anita Yavich’s work is genre blind. It doesn’t matter if she is designing for grand opera or an intimate comedy, her work is always a welcome plus to any production she is designing for.

Grab your tickets to WNO’s Fidelio to hear some of the finest voices (including opera superstar Denyce Graves) sing Beethoven’s beautiful score, and admire the gorgeous costumes created by Anita Yavich. She is definitely living her theatre life to the fullest.

Was costume design always the plan for your theatrical journey?

No, I wanted to be a painter when I first went to college-University of California, Santa Barbara, but I didn’t really hit it off with the professor of studio art, so I headed over to the theatre dept.  That is where I met my mentor, Dunya Ramicova, and she opened my eyes to theatre and all of its possibilities!

Where did you receive your training?

UC Santa Barbara, and Yale School of Drama.

What were your first professional jobs working in theatre and opera?

My first theatre design job was with Richard Foreman at the Ontological Hysterics theatre- I designed his play The Universe.  My first opera design job was with Francesca Zambello on Madame Butterfly, a co-production of Houston Grand Opera and Grand Théâtre de Genève.

From first sketch to finished product, how long was the process to design the costumes for Fidelio?

15 months? Approx? It was so long ago, but usually we design at least a year in advance for operas.

Along those same lines, do your initial costume concepts change much from the beginning of the design process to what we will see onstage in the finished production?

Sometimes, but usually they are not major changes once the sketches are finished and the build process begins, because there are too many people and too much time, budget, and labor involved. I have to be very thorough in my design approach and go through a lot of the details with the director.

Do you find designing for theatre any different than designing for opera?

I think a lot of times it has to do with the subject matter and scale.  We get to tackle myths and archetypes in opera than in theatre, and they demand a different kind of theatricality. 

After Fidelio opens, what is in store for you the rest of 2024 and into 2025?

I am designing a new opera by Huang Rao and David Henry Hwang called The Monkey King at San Francisco Opera, and I am also designing a new production of Floyd Collins. The music and lyrics are by Adam Guettel, and the book is by Tina Landau. It opens at the Vivian Beaumont this spring.

Special thanks to Kennedy Center's Senior Press Representative, Classical David Hsieh for his assistance in coordinating this interview.

Theatre Life logo designed by Kevin Laughon.

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