Claassen reviving one-woman show on Edith Head | www.azstarnet.com ®

Claassen reviving one-woman show on Edith Head www.azstarnet.com ®


Published: 02.27.2009
Claassen reviving one-woman show on Edith Head
She portrays the Oscar-winning fashion designer
By Kathleen Allen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Edith Head died in 1981.

Yet, the great Oscar-winning costume designer, lives.
Thank Invisible Theatre’s Susan Claassen for that.



She remounts her one-woman show, “A Conversation with Edith Head,” for a limited run next week.
Claassen first resurrected Head in 2002 with a script fashioned by Claassen; Paddy Calistro, co-author with the designer of “Edith Head’s Hollywood”; and Tucson director Carol Calkins.

Since then, it’s taken on a life of its own, drawing crowds at Scotland’s Fringe Festival, packing them in at a small theater in London’s West End and bringing it to adoring fans around this country.

Claassen was watching a television biography about Head when she realized her remarkable resemblance to the designer. A play was born.

It takes place a few weeks before Head’s death. As Claassen-as-Head paces the stage, hand on hip, eyes looking up and down as though assessing — and dismissing — what you’re wearing, she talks about her career. And what a career: For 44 years, Head designed costumes for 1,131 films, received 35 Academy Award nominations and won eight Oscars.She dressed such weighty stars as as Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Paul Newman and Grace Kelly.

Performances for the 90-minute “A Conversation With Edith Head” are 7:30 p.m Thursday, 8 p.m. next Friday and March 7, and 3 p.m. March 8 at Invisible Theatre, 1400 N. First Ave. Tickets are $25, with half-price tickets one-half hour before the show —if they are available. And we wouldn’t bet on that. Call 882-9721.

Claassen's play about Hollywood icon adapts to locale

Claassen's play about Hollywood icon adapts to locale


Claassen's play about Hollywood icon adapts to locale

February 25, 2009, 5:08 p.m.

CHUCK GRAHAM
Tucson Citizen

Just like an evolving work of art, Invisible Theatre's original production "A Conversation with Edith Head" has evolved.

Back in 2002 when IT's artistic director Susan Claassen wrote and made her debut in this one-woman show - giving a much-praised portrayal of the iconic Hollywood costume designer - the story was set on the Universal City Studio Tour where she had a bungalow. Now Claassen makes adjustments to her intimate portrait so it is set in whatever city - or country - she happens to be in for the show.

So when "A Conversation with Edith Head" returns to the Tucson stage March 5, the dialogue will be adjusted so there are direct references to the Old Pueblo.

"Her husband loved Southwestern art, and they would come here looking for pieces to collect," Claassen says. "They also went to Nogales. And remember that 'The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean' was shot here, " Claassen adds. She doesn't expect any shortage of Tucson references.

"Edith Head knew the value of reaching out to the public, and we do that, too. It is especially rewarding for me to meet people who actually knew her."

There were some particularly touching incidents in London, where the show played for three weeks in 2007. The London run followed the play's successful three weeks at Scotland's Edinburgh Festival Fringe ("There is no such thing as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, they always say 'Festival Fringe' Claassen assures us), where the show was officially declared a sell-out.

"Out of 2,000 acts, there were only 200 that officially sold out," Claassen says proudly.
"When we went to London, people were always telling us stories about their personal connections to her, especially older people. One said how they would see Edith Head's name during World War II and just seeing that name would give them hope."

Edith Head lived up to that promise, going on to design the costumes for the stars of many pictures for decades after the war ended. The last film she worked on was Steve Martin's comedy "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," released in 1982.

The iconic costume designer had a particularly close working relationship with another Brit, Alfred Hitchcock. Claassen is especially taken by the gowns Head designed for Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" and "To Catch A Thief."

"In 'Rear Window' the clothes she wears actually progress the story," Claassen points out.
In a complementary event, the Loft Cinema is screening "Rear Window" at 1 p.m. Sunday. Claassen will be there to talk about Head's costumes for the picture and dish a little dirt on Hitchcock's battles with uptight censors to keep some sexual tension in this 1954 classic thriller.

"In film, you design for the close-ups," Claassen explains. "That's what made the neckline so important."
"Edith would be on the set so if the censors complained about too much cleavage, she would slip in a large flower, or something else fashionable."

Hitchcock and the costume designer worked especially well together, says Claassen, who has become an expert on the subject.

"Edith would say, 'With every director you have a special language. But with Hitch I didn't even need words.'"

Claassen also feels a strong connection to this lady who was equally famous for her bangs.
"On a lot of levels I do relate to her," Claassen says. "I love doing the role. Whenever I'm in costume, I always stay in character. I feel personally responsible for representing her accurately.
"On a lot of levels I can relate to her directly. To her determination, and her love for style. Both of us have such passion for what we do.

"But she is different from me, too. She is more reserved, less animated than I am. Her sense of humor is different. She didn't smile as much as I do."

However there is no denying the physical look they share. When Claassen is stage-ready, the resemblance to Head is uncanny.

"If you Google her I come up a lot. The Web site for the Biography Channel had a picture of her, but it was actually a photo of me.

"We did notify them of the error," Claassen adds with a little smile.

FASHIONABLY PERVERSE: HITCHCOCK’S REAR WINDOW introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen | The Loft Cinema

FASHIONABLY PERVERSE: HITCHCOCK’S REAR WINDOW introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen The Loft Cinema



FASHIONABLY PERVERSE: HITCHCOCK’S REAR WINDOW introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen

Sunday, March 1st at 1:00 p.m.
Admission: $6.00 / Loft members: $4.75

Fear and fashion make a beautiful couple in Hitchcock's suspense classic REAR WINDOW, introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen, who will dish the dirt on legendary Hollywood costumer Edith Head's iconic designs for star Grace Kelly, Hitch's battles with the censors, and much more!

**Enter our free raffle to win a copy of the new 25th Anniversary edition of the classic book Edith Head's Hollywood, by Edith Head and Paddy Calistro, with a foreward by Bette Davis!**

The suspense. The binoculars. The Edith Head gowns!

Few films in Hollywood history have so creatively combined fashion and fear as Hitchcock’s nail-biting 1954 thriller REAR WINDOW, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. With its darkly twisted tale of voyeurism, murder and sexual tension, this perverse slice of vintage “Hitch” would be an all-time classic for those elements alone, but equally unforgettable is the breathtakingly blonde Grace Kelly, serenely gliding through all the madness in a stunning series of gorgeous gowns designed by legendary Hollywood costume designer Edith Head. As Lisa, the gorgeous fashion model with a killer wardrobe and nerves of steel, Kelly’s witty flirtations with a wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart steam up the screen in ways that drove 1950s censors mad back in the day and almost make today’s viewers forget that a sinister murderer may be lurking across one of the most famous courtyards in movie history.

REAR WINDOW’s fashionable perversity isn’t lost on Invisible Theater’s Artistic Director Susan Claassen, who will introduce this special screening by discussing Edith Head’s iconic costumes on display in the film, how fashion and fear fuel Hitchcock’s dark desires, and why conservative 1950s censors put Jimmy Stewart in a leg cast. Claassen, who offers an uncanny evocation of Edith Head as the star and co-writer of the internationally-acclaimed one-woman stage show, A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD (running March 5th – 8th at Invisible Theater), will offer wit, wisdom and insight (not to mention a little gossip) on the late, great Hollywood costumer designer, and reveal how Edith Head managed to spin high fashion beauty out of one of the scariest movies ever made.

See Susan Claassen live on stage in A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD, March 5th – 8th, at Invisible Theater.

Visit the Invisible Theater website at http://www.invisibletheatre.com/ for more information.

(Alfred Hitchcock, 1954, 112 mins., Not Rated)

February 1, 2009
James Rana, WFDU, Interviews Susan Claassen about A Conversation with Edith Head

A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD Begins US Tour

A CONVERSATION WITH EDITH HEAD Begins US Tour

Thursday, January 8, 2009; Posted: 12:01 PM - by BWW News Desk

Arizona-based actress Susan Claassen, who completed a highly successful engagement on London's West End this summer as legendary Hollywood designer Edith Head in "A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head", recently began an intermittent US tour which will bring her to Arizona and California. (The month-long engagement at London's new Leicester Square Theatre was preceded by a sold out run at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.)



"A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head", based on Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD by Edith Head & Paddy Calistro, is a feast of delicious behind-the-scenes stories about Hollywood's greatest stars that provide an intimate portrait of Hollywood's legendary costume designer. In her six decades of costume design, Edith Head worked on over eleven hundred films; dressed the greatest stars of Hollywood; received 35 Academy Award® nominations, and won an unprecedented eight Oscars®. Edith Head's story is as fascinating as the history of the film industry itself, filled with humor, frustration and, above all, glamour. This diva of design helped to define glamour in the most glamorous place in the world - Hollywood!

Ms. Claassen began her US tour in October by opening the 16th season at Houston's Theater LaB with a sold out 5-performance engagement.

On February 8th at 8 AM (ET) Ms. Claassen will celebrate the up-coming Academy Awards with an interview on The James Rana Radio Show airing on WFDU-FM (89.1) and online at www.wfdu.fm). Edith Head received the most Academy Awards of any woman in the history of the awards.

Ms. Claassen's up-coming performances in "A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head" include:

March 5-8, 2009 Invisible Theatre, 1400 North First Avenue, Tucson, AZ
(520) 882-9721
www.invisibletheatre.com

March 13, 2009 Tubac Center of the Arts, 9 Plaza Road, Tubac, AZ
(520) 398-2371
http://www.tubacarts.org/

May 27-30, 2009 Costume Society of America, 35th Annual Symposium
Tempe and Phoenix, AZ
(800) CSA-9447 http://www.costumesocietyamerica.com/natsym.htm

June 19-20, 2009 Coronado Public Library, 640 Orange Avenue, Coronado, CA
(619) 522-7390
http://www.coronado.ca.us/library/

June 23-24, 2009 North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive,
Solana Beach, CA
(858) 481-1055
http://www.northcoastrep.org/season_special.html#edith

Edith Head was a Hollywood costume designer for more than 60 years. 44 of those years were spent at Paramount Studios, where she worked with the most famous actors of the time, from Mae West and Clara Bow to Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Bette Davis. When Paramount failed to renew her contract in 1967, Alfred Hitchcock stepped in and Ms. Head was invited to join Universal Studios. At Universal she costumed Robert Redford and Paul Newman in "The Sting" and won the first-ever Oscar® for a film without a female lead. Her eight Academy Award® celebrated her artistry in "The Heiress" (her first Oscar®), "Samson & Delilah", "All About Eve", "A Place in the Sun", "Roman Holiday", "Sabrina", "The Facts of Life" and "The Sting". Edith Head died in October 1981, still under contract to Universal Studios, having just completed the Steve Martin film, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid".

Susan Claassen was inspired to write and star in "A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head" while watching a TV biography of Ms. Head. Susan Claassen said: "Not only do I bear a striking resemblance to Edith, but we share the same love for clothes and fashion. Edith survived the boy's club of Hollywood to enjoy a 60-year career, during which she worked on 1,131 films, earned 35 Oscar nominations and won eight. She stitched Dorothy Lamour into her sarong; put Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in kilts in "The Road to Bali"; created Bette Davis' glamorous Margo Channing; made teenage girls swoon over ElizaBeth Taylor's white ballgown in "A Place in the Sun"; dressed Ingrid Bergman in "Notorious", Grace Kelly in "To Catch A Thief", Kim Novak in "Vertigo", Gloria Swanson in "Sunset Boulevard" and Sean Connery in "The Man Who Would Be King". There are many myths about her but she was a discreet, tenacious personality. She knew whose hips needed clever disguising and made sure those legendary stars always looked the part. Our show gives the inside scoop on Edith and the Golden Age of Hollywood."

"A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head" premiered at The Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona in January, 2002 and was subsequently presented in Chicago; Key West, FLA; at the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, MD; Hartford; San Francisco; Nantucket, and Scottsdale, as well as in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia and a ‘sold out' engagement at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (Out of the 2,000 shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe only 200 were officially designated ‘Sold Out' engagements.)

As an actress, some of Susan's most memorable roles have been Bella in "LOST IN YONKERS" Alice B. Toklas in "Gertrude Stein AND A COMPANION" Hannah in "CROSSING DELANCEY", Shirley in "SHIRLEY VALENTINE" and Trudy in "THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE". In addition to her work with The Invisible Theatre she has been a consultant and director for The Waterfront Playhouse and The Red Barn Theatre in Key West, Florida, and directed Steve Ross in "I WON'T DANCE" at New York's famed Rainbow and Stars Cabaret and St. Paul's prestigious Ordway Theatre. As Managing Artistic Director of The Invisible Theatre in Tucson, Arizona, Susan has produced more than 335 productions and directed more than 50. She is the recipient of the 1985 Governor's Award for Women Who Create; the 1993 Humanitarian Torch Award for her efforts on behalf of people living with AIDS, and a 1996 Distinguished Service Award from the State Federation for Exceptional Children for her commitment to arts education for special populations. Susan was the 1999 City of Hope "Spirit of Life" recipient (as was Edith Head in 1976), and performs as a clown in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She was recently selected as one of Tucson Lifestyle's 10 Most Admired Women and will be honored by The Jewish Federation in 2009 as one of Tucson's 13 most remarkable women. She is featured in the book HOW TO BE A WORKING ACTOR by Mari Henry & Lynne Rogers.

Much of the dialogue in "A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head" comes directly from the famed designer. When she was asked to write the authorized posthumous autobiography, Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD, Paddy Calistro acquired more than 13 hours of recollections recorded by Edith Head - including her own snippy "Edithisms" as Ms. Head referred to her own sayings, such as: "I hate modesty, don't you?" and "Good clothes are not a matter of good luck." The show also features insights from Hollywood insiders who knew Ms. Head best: costume designer Bob Mackie, who once worked as Ms. Head's sketch artist; her dear friend Edie Wasserman, wife of the late Universal Studio head Lew Wasserman, and Art Linkletter, award-winning host of TV's "House Party", who brought Edith Head into the homes of America. Edith would stroll through the studio audience with Linkletter, offering brutally critical fashion, diet and grooming advice - all this half a century before the current mania for on-screen makeovers. "Go on a diet!" she would instruct an overweight woman, while instantly making her look ten pounds slimmer by pulling her shirt out of her trousers, whipping a belt around her middle and swapping her cheap gold jewelry for her own signature pearls. Young fans of Pixar's "The Incredibles" will recognized the superhero outfitter Edna Mode as an affectionate tribute to the legendary Hollywood costume designer.

Co-author Paddy Calistro is one of the leading authorities on The Life and work of Edith Head and is the co-author of Edith Head's posthumous autobiography, Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD. She was selected as Ms. Head's official biographer based on her experience as a fashion journalist. A former fashion and beauty writer for the Los Angeles Times, Paddy wrote the weekly "Looks" column in the LA Times Magazine for four years. She was the West Coast reporter for Allure and has written for Glamour, Mademoiselle, House Beautiful, Elle, Four Seasons Magazine, Fitness and Los Angeles Magazine. For more than a decade Paddy was the lead interior design writer for LA Magazine, and was also the editor of American Style, a bilingual fashion magazine sold in Mexico and South America. The co-founder of Angel City Press, an independent book publishing company based in Santa Monica, she currently serves as its Publisher and Editor-in-chief. The 25th anniversary edition of Edith Head'S HOLLYWOOD has recently been reissued and will be available for purchase at all performances of "A CONVERSATION WITH Edith Head".

Film fans sit up and listen to Edith | Lifestyle/Features | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Film fans sit up and listen to Edith Lifestyle/Features Chron.com - Houston Chronicle


Film fans sit up and listen to Edith
Audience interacts in A Conversation With Edith Head
By EVERETT EVANS Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 23, 2008, 6:31PM



Movie buffs likely will gobble up A Conversation With Edith Head like a box of gourmet chocolates or, more to the point, a 24-hour Barbara Stanwyck marathon.

Susan Claassen's affectionate solo show portraying the legendary costume designer — who worked on more than 1,100 films from 1923 to 1981 and won a record eight Oscars — is at Theater LaB through Sunday.

Claassen certainly looks the part, sporting Head's trademark dark-rimmed, tinted glasses topped by black bangs and a tightly wound bun. She creates a distinctive voice characterization. She projects the drive, toughness, candor and unpretentious authority that make you buy her as Head.

A small, eccentric-looking yet powerful woman, Head always suggested a catlike inscrutability — the air of someone who knows where the bodies are buried, isn't going to tell, but uses the knowledge to her advantage. That's the most crucial quality Claassen conveys in her portrayal.

As the show's setup has it, Head's appearance takes place in 1981, during a break in her work on Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, which will turn out to be her final film. It's just a few weeks before her death, but no one knows that tonight.

Jonathan McVay, playing her Houston host, introduces the legend and hands her a stack of cards with questions submitted by audience members before the show. Answering those questions, sometimes directly, sometimes rambling far afield, cues an evening of mostly random reminiscence, with McVay politely veering Head back to the point when she grows too besotted with memories.

The audience participation angle is well-employed and fun, with Head asking who supplied each question, commenting on each person's sense of style (or lack thereof), even asking a few to step onstage for more extensive analysis.

One kibitzer whom we soon realize is a plant, asks the most challenging questions (i.e., didn't assistants do more design work than she on certain films?), even contradicts Head on dates and facts, to the point he gets on her nerves. The device is amusing but would work better if used more sparingly.

The fun stems mostly from Head's fond — if at times, tart — recollections of iconic stars and films. She speaks of form-fitting costumes to Mae West's full figure: "There was not one costume in which she could lie, sit or bend." We hear how Head solved Stanwyck's "figure challenge" to give her a new glamorous look in The Lady Eve. How Head put Dorothy Lamour in her first sarong in The Jungle Princess, the sarong becoming ever after Lamour's trademark. Of Hedy Lamarr's ravenous appetite on the set and Head creating her famous peacock feather cape in Samson and Delilah.

With its content derived from the book Edith Head's Hollywood, by Head and Paddy Calistro, the show is a skimming, lightly humorous stroll along cinematic Memory Lane. There are no bombshells, no big secrets revealed, either about the designer or the stars she dressed. Head believed in keeping them.

To the question "How would you describe your private life?," she responds:

"In a word ... private."

In later passages, the show flirts with deeper implications. Head hints at a psychic pain in being the woman behind the stars, in the intentionally subdued style she adopted so as not to compete with those mighty egos, a virtual self-effacement. Claassen strikes the evening's most poignant note recalling the impact of Gloria Swanson's performance at the premiere of Sunset Boulevard — and wondering whether her design work will be remembered as that of the stars on screen.

But Head is too practical a personality to indulge in self-doubt. She closes reasserting her supremacy — "perhaps not Hollywood's most endearing costume designer, but its most enduring." Who could argue?

Of course, this Conversation is more of an entertainment than a play. But for those who share Claassen's fervor for those great old classic films of yesteryear, it's certainly entertaining.

everett.evans@chron.com

Play channels classic costume designer Edith Head | Lifestyle/Features | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Play channels classic costume designer Edith Head Lifestyle/Features Chron.com - Houston Chronicle


Getting inside her head
By EVERETT EVANS Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Oct. 21, 2008, 7:23PM


Famed Hollywood costume designer Edith Head returns, after a fashion, for A Conversation With Edith Head, opening tonight at Theater LaB Houston.

Susan Claassen has been channeling Head since originating the solo show in 2002 at Tuscon, Ariz.'s Invisible Theatre Company, where Claassen is managing artistic director. Claassen has performed the work from San Francisco to Chicago to London, where she had an acclaimed monthlong run this summer.

Since Claassen has absorbed pretty much all there is to know about her subject, we decided to have our own conversation with "Edith Head."

Q: You've been described as discreet but also tough and driven.

A: I've had to be to survive six decades in the Hollywood boys' club. People have accused me of being a master of self-promotion. I suppose I am. I hate modesty, don't you?

Q: How would you sum up your philosophy of costume design for film?

A: It must fit the character. At the same time, I've always designed for the actor. How good the clothes look on screen depends on how comfortable the star is wearing them.

Q: Is that why you've sometimes been willing to adapt your designs, to change a detail, to keep the star happy? Producer Hal Wallis said you had "great rapport" with the stars you dressed, especially the women.

A: I never walked off a set in a huff. Early on, I learned the value of understanding their (actors') vulnerabilities. I know how to keep people's secrets.

Q: What designer influenced you the most?

A: Travis Banton, who was the head of Paramount's costume department from 1927 to 1938. (Head was his assistant in those years, replacing him at his departure to become the first woman to head a major studio's costume department.) I learned everything by studying his work, especially the way he created the signature look for the three graces of Paramount: Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard and Claudette Colbert.

Q: You've been quoted as saying that you were sometimes a better politician or diplomat than designer. Could you give an example?

A: On Vertigo, Kim Novak said the one color she absolutely hated to see herself in was gray. Alfred Hitchcock always came into a film with very detailed ideas about what he wanted. And naturally, for a key scene in Vertigo, he had distinctly said, "I want her in a gray suit." So it was up to me to find a way to bring Kim around, showing her swatches and swatches of different grays, until we finally came to a lavender-gray for the suit, and she loved it.

Q: How would you rate yourself among your fellow designers?

A: There probably have been greater designers. No one could surpass the glamor of Adrian designing for Greta Garbo. But where some excelled chiefly at one type of film, I've enjoyed being a chameleon who can do any type of picture, from Westerns to monster movies, musicals to biblical spectacles. Designing gorgeous gowns for Grace Kelly to wear in To Catch a Thief is one kind of thrill. But in The Country Girl (the drab character role for which Kelly won her Oscar), to make Grace Kelly look plain was a challenge unto itself.

Q: How important is authenticity to period or locale?

A: That depends on the project and the director. For The Heiress, I did the kind of research (director) William Wyler wanted, because he was adamant about authenticity. But on the Road pictures, if Bob Hope wanted to wear something just because it was funny, nobody gave a damn. Cecil B. DeMille never made an "authentic" picture.

Q: On House Party, you were known for being frank with the audience members. Such as telling a portly lady, "Go on a diet!"

A: The sponsors requested that I be nicer to the ladies. I tried.

Q: Was it part of your "self-promotion" to make cameo appearances as yourself in films like Lucy Gallant and The Oscar? Did you enjoy being on the other side of the camera for a change?

A: I hated doing them. It's difficult to portray yourself. You have to keep repeating the same thing. I did them because they (the studios) wanted me to do it. When you're under contract to a studio, you do what they tell you to do. After those experiences, I had a greater respect for actors.

Q: What would you like your legacy to be? Is there a single film, even a single costume, that you'd most want to remembered for?

A: For the whole body of work and the recognition it achieved. I worked hard to get the profession recognized. Remember, for the first 21 years of the Academy Awards, there was no category for costume design.

Q: I gather that, unlike some in the industry, you take awards very seriously.

A: They're my pride and joy. There's nothing like eight Oscars for putting the fear of God into an actress who thinks she knows everything about dress design.

Q: Is there a thought you'd like to leave us with? Anything you'd tell young people who aspire to careers in film or design?

A: You can be anything you want in the world, as long as you dress for it.