Ann Hould-Ward’s wiry frame is pumping furiously on a Stairmaster while her staff is at dinner. Only her eyes remain fixed–on a book about Hanukkah.
The costume designer is in a gym above Broadway, cramming for a musical, “Miracles,” opening this fall. Researching the Jewish holiday will lend authenticity to her sketches, just as reading Shakespeare enhanced her costumes for Vanessa Redgrave’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” currently off-Broadway. In the 12 weeks allotted for research, Hould-Ward’s two assistants on the show will also cull the New York Public Library’s picture collection and other sources for biblical robes and prayer shawls. They will arrange these and other images to guide her.
Hould-Ward received the 1994 Tony and the American Theatre Wing’s award for best costume design for “Beauty and the Beast.” She also received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Into the Woods.” Other credits include “Falsettos,” “The Moliere Comedies” and “In the Summer House.”
Designing more than 200 costumes for “Beast” has been her most daunting project so far. To a designer accustomed to working with buttons and fabrics, Hould-Ward had to turn the film’s animated characters into life-size figures wearing lavish costumes built with wiring, back braces, latex and prosthetics. Probably the most complex costume was that of Lumiere, the candelabra whose fingers burst into flames.
Hould-Ward consulted with dozens of designers, craftsmen, artisans and special-effects experts from Disney, but got final approval from her daughter, Leah, now 10.
“I figured if a 5-year-old’s wishes and desires were upheld, I was on the right track,” she says. “We used to call it the Leah Factor.”
When she first came to New York, Hould-Ward left her 3-year-old son (now 22) in her native Montana and slept on a friend’s floor in Greenwich Village. Having a child was then a death knell for a career woman, and it stills rankles her that, unlike Leah, her son was not welcome.
“I was unable to tell people I had a child,” she says. “Now I’m asked, `How many assistants do you want to go with you, and do you want to take your daughter?’ “
Last year, Hould-Ward flew about 400,000 miles, sometimes to fit “Beast” costumes on actors overseas. Her daughter travels with her during school vacations, and last year they were in Hawaii, Nova Scotia and Los Angeles together.
“I try to make sure it’s in my contract that I take her,” says Hould-Ward. In March, Leah accompanied her mother to London, where “Beast” is marking its 10th production.
Hould-Ward usually juggles three or four productions at once, which amazes Susan Ruddie, her first assistant on “Dream.” “If she were in corporate, she’d be like the president of a Fortune 500,” Ruddie says. “Most designers don’t do as many projects at the same time as Ann can handle.”
Hould-Ward, who is in her 40s, got her first big break in 1984 when she and Pat Zipprodt designed costumes for the Broadway smash “Sunday in the Park with George.” In the late ’70s, she had pursued Zipprodt for a job until the elusive designer finally relented.
“I always say the reason I got ahead was I love to butt my head into a cement wall,” says Hould-Ward. “I never let anything deter me from what I want.”
Hould-Ward lives with Leah and their cat, Sweet Pea, in an upscale Bronx neighborhood. Line drawings of her costume designs, some for shows that never opened, fill the apartment walls.
Hould-Ward starts her day at 6 a.m. and has breakfast with Leah. She drives to Manhattan and often stops in her studio to sketch before meeting with assistants, a costumer or performer for a fitting. During previews, she must attend every performance, meeting with the director and producer afterward. While she may welcome their comments, she’s a bit put off by the producer’s wife’s two cents.
“Everybody and his wife has an opinion about contemporary clothes,” says Hould-Ward, “what tennis shoes look like.”
The process of script to sketch and fit to finish begins when a director or producer contacts her while still raising money for a production, usually a year or two before a show premieres. Hould-Ward receives a partial fee on contract and royalties from the production.
Randy Brown, her first assistant on “Miracles,” says when Hould-Ward begins sketching after all the research is in, “she can pencil out 40 sketches in a week.”
The assistants maintain her schedule of meetings and fittings, doctor appointments and daily gym time. Brown recalls when Hould-Ward sprained an ankle but refused to forgo her workout.
“It’s part of her life,” he says. “She is so determined and focused.”
Colleagues marvel at her visual sense.
“I’ve learned to look with her, through her eyes,” says David H. Lawrence, hair designer on “Beast” and “Dream.” “Some costume designers don’t focus on details like Ann can. Sometimes designers are afraid of hair and leave me to my own devices. They focus on different parts of the body and hair becomes less important.”
Brown agrees. “Ann sees the whole picture,” he says, noting her need to see costume, shoes and wig on the performer at the final fitting. “Hair decides the shape of the clothes. Seeing it all together, she might decide the hair should be shorter or darker.”
He attributes this sense of proportion to her work with dancers. In fact, Hould-Ward considers designing for dancers her greatest honor.
“Dance is my favorite thing to design,” she says. “It’s a different place that operates in my brain in designing dance. I have a strong sense of line. I appreciate choreography and how a choreographer works. You have the most unbelievable bodies to work with when you work with dancers.”
What’s more, in dance the right costume is crucial. Unlike an actor whose performance is paramount, “a dancer has no words,” she says. “You have to be so much more honed in. It’s scarier.”
As a single mother earning a high salary, Hould-Ward is often torn between her desire to spend more time with her daughter and the perks of her profession.
“Power is very hard to give up,” she admits.
Yet any pangs of guilt usually disappear during a workout.
“All around the world at any given hour, one of my productions is running,” she reminds herself. “People with their kids are there enjoying it. That’s a very nice thing to know.”
Does she ever envision another Tony? She laughs.
“It’s like having a Jaguar. When the Jaguar gets old, you want a new one.”
