Costume designer Karen Perry responded to questions from Teaching Artist Leah Reddy in writing.
Leah Reddy: What is your theatre origin story? How did your education or early theatrical experiences shape how you approach your work as a costume designer?
Karen Perry: I was born and raised in Harlem, New York. I am a third-generation Harlem resident, starting with my grandmother Lillian in 1927. My daughter, Amber, is the fourth generation.
My creative education started with my grandmother Lillian, and her tiny Singer hand sewing machine. She taught me to sew as a very little girl. Also, during my childhood and teens we had the Police Athletic League all summer long. I particularly loved the arts and crafts woman Miss Pearl — she taught me so much about crafting everything and anything that I was a well-rounded craftsperson by the time I got to high school at 13. I was an artistic child: any arts and crafts, paper dolls, sewing machines, reupholstering my family’s furniture for the holiday with fabric that I got for my allowance from Woolworths or the five and dime Store on 125th Street. I was always that creative crafts artsy person.
My education was in the public schools of New York City. My mother, raised during the WWII era, believed that we all needed to learn a trade that would take care of us for the rest of our lives, so I ended up at the High School of Fashion Industries, because as my mother would say, “We don’t know any Black artists making any money, so if you don’t want to work at the post office you need to go get a factory job doing something that you like, and you like to sewing and drawing and painting and they’ll let you do that at that school!” So off I went to Fashion High.
I studied everything in high school and settled on fashion design which, by the time I got to college at Fashion Institute of Technology, I discovered I did not like. I Ieft FIT to join the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) as an assistant to the costume/set designer Mary Mease Warren. That was my life-changing entrance into the world of theatre or “the circus” as I call it. It’s a wonderful world that becomes like a “travelers’ family environment.” This thing we call theatre and this show business world in general, whether it is stage, film, or TV, it’s someone’s circus!
There were a lot of different things that l prepared me to deal with a lot of different people, with a lot of different attitudes, with a lot of different personalities, which I found when I started working at 19 at the Negro Ensemble Company, and then a few months later at Joseph Papp’s theatre, known as the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, as a freelance assistant to whichever designer or artist needed my particular style of being.
LR: You have designed so many shows — everything from August Wilson’s Century Cycle to Fun Home to Oklahoma!. What attracted you to The Imaginary Invalid? What’s exciting to you as a designer in the project? To any project you choose?
KP: I am attracted to the story! And then who’s directing! As a single mother and a freelance artist, my early opportunities were mostly about being able to say YES to as many different projects as were offered. There were times, in what I now call my paying-my-dues era, where I had to say yes to things because rent was needed and so was my daughter’s school tuition. Even though I took many jobs that I went through giving them my best, I made a mental note, to never do anything that doesn’t set right with my spirit. The productions you mentioned — the nine August Wilson plays, Fun Home, Oklahoma! – came along at a time when I was mature enough to discern.
The play is the gravitating force for me. Storytelling is my jam. I love a fabulous story — funny, sad, poignant, thought provoking, magical, you name it — if it’s a good story chances are I’m in. Then I look at who’s directing. I have some favorites that I don’t like to say no to. Brandon Dirden is one of them. His integrity and attention to detail and his very calm, chill-but-soothing manner of directing is one of the things I love about Brandon.
I hadn’t done any Moliere since my days at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts so jumping into seventeenth century France was exciting. We went around and around about what that look and direction would be. I sat for a couple of weeks trying to figure it out and then I had a Zoom meeting with Bill Irwin and Brandon and it just became very clear that I needed to place this in familiar territory. Because I love fun and beautiful and sparkly, I went for fairy tale. This was going to be the fairy tale version of The Imaginary Invalid for Ime.
Its funny and thought provoking and I knew that something else magical ✨️ was going to be a part of the presentation. I did not know at the time it would be the prologue! A commedia dell’arte play with the Bill Irwin as the Pantalone character makes a wonderful magic-filled opening.
LR: You’ve worked with director Brandon J. Dirden on several prior projects. What makes a successful collaboration between a director and a costume designer?
KP: A successful collaboration is really about respect, integrity, listening, compromise, and being in it for the right reasons! There’s no reason to be in this business if you’re not going to have fun! And yes, this is very much a business. It shouldn’t be hard with the director and myself. I’ve had many directors that I will never ever work with again for lots of different reasons. And that was part of the learning curve during my early years of working for the money and experience.
Working with Brandon’s particular creativity as a collaborator feels like family, as opposed to an employee, or the distance that one can feel when dealing with others who don’t have the same intentions.
LR: This is a new adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid, and Bill and Brandon have both spoken about finding the universal elements in the script. How has that idea come into your thinking about the design? Have any of the artistic choices Bill made about how each character speaks influenced your designs? Are there elements of the classic commedia dell’arte characters that you’re integrating into your designs?
KP: I wanted to make sure I honored and included commedia dell’arte in some way because Bill Irwin is such an authority of the art form. I did not want this to look like any of the productions I found during many, many weeks/months of research. I also did not want to do Hamilton, Les Miserables, or Queen of Versailles (which are all beautiful productions by the way). I didn’t want to do anything that felt like historical enactments or a museum piece. I wanted to honor Bill Irwin’s commedia dell’arte side by dressing each of the characters in traditional commedia colors! A lot of research was done to make it subtle but those in the know, will know.
LR: How do you stay inspired as an artist? What fuels you?
KP: I am inspired by so many different things.
I love documentaries, love!
I have a research library of books that are my favorite things.
My home is a huge eclectic mass of art and prints and fashion and books and movies and things I have found in different countries and gifts that are just special and unique. So many things inspire me. Movies — I love movies; TV series — I’m amazed at how much inspiration I can get from watching a series or two or three. I don’t go to museums as much as I used to but with the new technology that we have right in the palm of our hands I can actually go anywhere and visit anything. My last, best, fun thing that I was inspired by is the Broadway Museum on 45th Street in New York. It’s wonderful and not just because I have a couple of things in there. It’s a must visit!
This past two years for the first time ever I saw every Broadway show! So many amazingly creative plays and musicals happened on Broadway these last two years. I’m so happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to see them. So creatively inspiring!
LR: What advice do you have for aspiring designers?
KP: I am happy that there are a lot more designers of color now than just six years ago! I was very worried for quite some time. Everyone was under the impression that master’s degrees were essential to be in this field. Stage managers of color are needed. Wig designers of color are needed! As are makeup designers! Dramaturgy is desperately needing of people of color. Lighting Design! Set Design! Sound Design!
When I started, designers of color were at NEC, they were there at the Public Theater, they were there at the National Black Theater, they were there at the Frank Silvera Writers’ Workshop, and then suddenly they were all gone.
This is what I want to say to those coming up behind me, those that come from neighborhoods like I come from—Harlem, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, parts of New Jersey. I talk to young people and their alternative if they don’t get into school is they’re going to join the military. My heart stops when I hear something like that. My heart stops when I hear parents and grandparents say: “Isn’t this just a community theatre? Is this your real job? Do you actually make a living doing this?” My heart stops that this is not a well-known option for high schoolers or community college students!
I want to see more kids that look like me, Black kids and brown kids from where I’m from, like those Black and brown kids that are still in Harlem, from the old generation of Harlemite kids. And the ones in the Bronx and the ones in Brooklyn whose families don’t own the brownstones or coops or condos.
The world is open to those kids.
I want the kids that only see limited options to life.
Unbelievable in 2026, but it’s still very real for many people! I want to see those kids in Jersey, whose families are working-class people, not middle-class people, but working-class people, to know that their kids have this whole other opportunity of creativity and that master’s degrees are not necessarily the only way to be a part of this world.
Yes, it’s a lot of hard work. The fun comes when the hard work comes together in a collaboration. An attitude to learn, to want to be a part of a family group. The spirit of collaboration is imperative. This business is not for everyone, but it’s definitely for a lot more than what is presently being presented!