if the song doesn’t work, change the dress: the illustrated memoirs of broadway costume designer patricia zipprodt

Iconic Broadway costume designer Patricia Zipprodt (1925-99) tells her own colorful story from a tumultuous childhood in Depression-era Chicago to Bohemian New York in the 1950s, becoming one of the 20th century’s most celebrated designers.

Told with Zipprodt’s acerbic humor and delicious wit, If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress charts her journey to 1950s Greenwich Village, America’s literary and artistic Bohemia. Tracking her career as it plunges into the developing Off-Broadway movement, and charting her personal and professional failures and successes collaborating with the biggest artists of the day - Jerome Robbins, Hal Prince, and Bob Fosse - making her one of the most recognizable, and award-winning, designers of 20th-century theatre.

Published in full color, this illustrated memoir includes pictures from Zipprodt’s own archive including sketches, drawings, and photographs of her work from some of the most significant shows of the 20th century, including Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, and Pippin, and her work with such American theatre giants as Jo Mielziner, Irene Sharaff, José Quintero, Boris Aronson, Tony Walton, and Joel Grey, who provides a personal foreword to the memoir. Zipprodt’s posthumous collaborator, theatre design historian Arnold Wengrow provides a vivid epilogue about her final battle with cancer. Drawing from her archive at the New York Public Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, he amplifies her recollections with letters, oral histories, and interviews she gave over the years to offer a portrait of an artist consistently working against the grain.

If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress will delight readers interested in Broadway, ballet, opera, and the history of costume design. Her lively anecdotes about New York theatre and working in Hollywood provide a rich insight into the life and work of a celebrated female creative giant of American theatre.

Patricia Zipprodt (1925-1999) was one of Broadway’s pioneering costume designers, working with legendary directors Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Hal Prince, and Mike Nichols on the iconic musicals Fiddler on the Roof, Chicago, Cabaret, and Pippin, and the movie classic The Graduate.

Arnold Wengrow served as an associate editor for Theatre Design and Technology (TD&T), published by the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT). His biographical articles on theatre personalities were published in American National Biography. His articles on theatrical design have appeared in Entertainment Design and TD&T. He curated and wrote the catalog for ＂Observe and Show: The Theatre Art of Michael Annals＂ for the Theatre Museum, London, 2003. His book The Designs of Santo Loquasto was published in 2017.