When I met Jane, she was surrounded by research she was doing for one of her current projects, The Great Gatsby. There were sketches all around and a board covered with photographs of people from the 1920s. She even showed me some of the sketches for The Scarlet Pimpernel, versions 1 and 3. If you've seen the UPN special, The Making of The Scarlet Pimpernel, you can see several of these sketches up close. They are drawn with tremendous detail, and colored in with beautiful water colors. Jane does most of the drawings herself.

NR: I believe you grew up in England. Is that correct?

JG: Yes, I grew up in England.

NR: When did you come to the U.S.?

JG: I came to Canada in 1960. I went to Stratford, Ontario and worked for a designer as a draper.

NR: What does a draper do?

JG: You look at the sketches and then you make the costumes from the sketches. I really sort of started over in this country in the practical end of working with costumes.

NR: When did you decide you wanted to do this?

JG: I think I liked dressing my dolls when I was a little girl. I always liked that but I didn't know that this was what I wanted to do. Sometimes I would go to the theater and think I wanted to be a dancer or I wanted to be an actress because it all fascinated me. When you don't have much experience you see the obvious thing. Then I realized that what I really loved and what I was always talking about was what everybody wore.

NR: So many people asked me what type of training they would need for this field. Many were interested in it.

JG: You know, it's very interesting about training for this. It's like looking at life. When you're a costume designer, you're not making things up necessarily. You don't have to be the "second coming for the next millennium" of what fashion is going to be like. You're always investigating the truth of people's characters visually. When you work on a period piece a long way away, such as the 1790's, you have limited resources. There are paintings but there aren't too many photographs. It's more limited. The rich were painted more than the poor so it's harder to find research for the lower classes. The further back you go, the lower down in the painting you have to look to find the variation for character of different people. But, really the training you need is to have a very wonderful background of a well-rounded education. You need to be a good historian. You need to be able to read a play and be able to understand it, and understand who those people are. Very often I will have students who will read a restoration play and they will say, "I didn't like that play very much. I didn't really find it very exciting, or very interesting." I'll say to them, "It's wonderful language and it's very funny." "Funny?" they'll say, and I'll say, "Let's all read it. You play so and so, you play this one..." and before you know where you are, you've got a group of people involved in trying to understand the language, make it sound interesting, and they begin to be involved. I think it's terribly important to understand the script. So, to be able to do that you need that good background of English literature and a good understanding of plays.

Then, you have to be interested in people. You have to be a people watcher. You're always going to be involved in what people wear. For me, it's infinitely fascinating. People will say, "It was ghastly! We were held over in the airport for five hours." You know, I can find a way to entertain myself for five hours without even trying. I look at all the people selling the various things in these little counters and what they wear. When you go to the beautician's counter, there are all sorts of people with the nails and the beautifully done make-up and the beautiful hair. The people who are serving the food and the people who are cleaning up around the airport - all the different levels of society that you see, and who all those people are. I love it when you see people sitting around and jockeying for position to get to the desk, to talk about what's going to happen with the plane, and I wonder, "What do they do?" "What does that man do? What business is he in? Why is he so pushy?" Look at his clothes. When you first look at him he looks pretty smart, but then you look and you see that his suit really needs to go to the cleaners and his shoes are a little down at heel. He doesn't really care.

NR: It's interesting that you haven't mentioned a knowledge of fabric or sewing...

JG: But that's later, that's later.

NR: And not as important I guess...

JG: Well, other people make the clothes for you. You go to costume shops and you have people who are going to then put in their two cents worth about how to make something. They will look at the sketch and they will say "Should we try it this way?" Also, when I'm working on a period piece like this I will tend to get a little group of people who are going to work on a show. I will get them together and we'll go to a museum. We went up to the Metropolitan Museum and we looked at all of their men's coats very carefully to see how they were cut, how they were lined, what kind of buttons they used, what button holes were left open and what button holes were closed because you often see a coat with fourteen buttons down one side and fourteen button holes, but they don't open them all. They very often open just one or two that they're going to fasten. All those details - if you can go and see a real coat, really see where the sleeve is set into the coat, how narrow the shoulders were, then it's a great help. I found when I first worked with Douglas Sills who was playing the Scarlet Pimpernel, he was avid to go look at the research with me. He found it very helpful to see how the men stood in their clothes, how they held themselves, how they held their heads with those high cravats. It's watching how people behave and that's what you always have to be looking for. When you're a designer, you're always looking for the ideas. You want to find ideas that you can work with.

NR: How many shows do you generally do in a year?

JG: It depends. The average is probably about four.

NR: Are you doing one at a time, or more than one at a time?

JG: Sometimes I'm doing more than one at a time.

NR: Is that confusing?

JG: You have to keep everything in its order. You have to try to keep every show in its place. I try not to work on more than one at a time because it's too hard.

NR: Do you find that you're so much in demand that you have to turn some shows down?

JG: Well, yes.

NR: So then you get to pick the shows you want?

JG: (laughing) Yes, and I'm more choosy as I get older.

NR: Do you have a regular staff that you use all the time no matter what show you're working on, or do you bring in different people?

JG: I have some people who work with me on a fairly regular basis and I have some people who come in and help on different projects if it's something that they seem right for and they want to be involved in. I do have a core nucleus of people that I work with.

NR: With a show the size of Pimpernel, how many people would be involved in that?

JG: When I first started on The Pimpernel, I had an associate designer who was here in the studio with me while we were getting all of the sketches done. Because there were so many, she would help draw and paint. One would draw this and paint that and we were very much in sync getting the show visually done. I had another person doing research apart from the research I'd done. I had done an enormous amount before I actually started designing. I have a couple of people who came at the end - shoppers/interns, and that was about it.

NR: I'm trying to understand how the process works from the beginning. Does the director say, "This is sort of what I want" or do you say that? Does it depend on who the director is?

JG: It varies. No two people design the same way and there are no two directors who direct the same way. Some directors are much more visually interested and others are more cerebrally interested. As a designer you have to be somewhat of a chameleon and get under the skin of the director. You sort of have to have a love affair with the director because you're creating this piece as a team - there's a director and a lighting designer and a set designer and a sound designer. All of you are really like a cog in the wheel, so you all have to really be in love with each other for the time that you're all working on that project. Sometimes I take along research for the first meeting with a director. If I don't know a director, I will perhaps just go and hear what they have to say and then go back and have another meeting to say we can go this way or that way.

NR: How did it go with Peter Hunt? How did you two work together?

JG: He came here and we sat and looked through some of my books in the library and some of the research that was very obviously part of what would be in the story of The Scarlet Pimpernel. Then I said to him, "Do you want this to look realistic or do you want it to be very stylized?" He said, "Oh, no no. I want it to be very realistic. I want them to look like the people of Paris and the people of London, and I want these people to have real characters and real development and I want the clothes to look like clothes." So, that told me how he wanted me to proceed.

NR: Since it got a little crazier in the second version, I'm assuming Bobby Longbottom had a different approach.

JG: He has developed a much more stylized feeling for the clothes. In a way he sees the humor of a period and I think "The Creation of Man" ...actually they were the first set of sketches. Peter felt that they were a little over the top. When I first met with Bobby, he said, "You know, I think you can have more fun with this" and I said, "Would you like to see the first set of sketches that we actually came up with?" He said he loved them and that they were right. We also had to put in a new "Valentine" number for the opening.

NR: Is that realistic? Did they really do that? They didn't have pink wigs, did they?

JG: They had very elaborate wigs. (Jane then showed me a book of pictures showing women wearing wigs that were just as elaborate as the "Storybook" wigs, although I have to say that none of them were pink.) The wigs were quite large. This picture is for the number that we're doing now - for the ballroom scene which is going to be completely different.

NR: Really?

JG: It's all in gold and silver. Percy and Marguerite are going to be in red.

NR: Can I ask you something? Why does Percy say he's going to be in "creamy satin" when actually he's in beige velvet? That really bothers me. (laughs)

JG: It bothered me and I don't know why they never changed it. He's changed it now from "creamy satin" to "ruby satin" because it's red, but in all truth, it's a brocade.

NR: Does it shimmer?

JG: It does.

NR: Good. So, all the ball gowns are going to change?

JG: Yes. They haven't changed since the beginning.

NR: Do you find that you have to make a compromise between what's historically what you really want to do and what's practical because they have to dance in it, or because they have to wear it over and over again?

JG: Well, yes, you always have to... I mean, here we are. It's 1999 and we do know about dry cleaners and washing. But, curiously enough, those clothes don't go to the dry cleaner.

NR: How do you keep them clean? They're all sweating when they're wearing them.

JG: They have a t-shirt and they have underwear and they have tights. They have a linen shirt. When men wore these clothes, they had linen. Their linen protected the clothes. That's why they have those high collars and those cravats that kept the perspiration away from the velvet and the silks. I think the same thing is true today. Their shirts and their underwear and their tights are washed every night so they're clean. If you think about it, you think they must get terribly hot but they only wear them for one number. They take them off right away and they're on to the next thing. The costumes are hung out and they air. I beg them not to send them to the cleaners more than they have to because it takes all the joy out of the clothes.

NR: They only have one of each of these. Is that true?

JG: Yes. In the movies, it's very different. You usually have quite of few of them. But, in the theater, the cost of these things is prohibitive.

NR: Now, what about the understudies? I think Bryan (Batt) told me he had his own, although he and Douglas shared a few items.

JG: They shared a couple of things. Producers never want to invest in more than they have to. If an actor isn't wearing it next to the skin... as I said, they have their own shirts and their own vests and all of that.

NR: But Douglas is a lot taller than Bryan.

JG: Yes, and he needed larger things made for him.

NR: What about physical limitations? For example, I remember when Christine (Andreas) said that her dress was as wide as the bridge.

JG: Well, we measured what it was.

NR: What about the women's ball gowns? Did you have to make them a bit smaller so that they could get on stage?

JG: No, because they were flown from the back of the stage.

NR: Even the Thanksgiving Day parade, when they had to stand outside in the rain, did that kill you?

JG: Killed me, killed me. But the Bounders wore their woolen ones for that number, so it wasn't too terrible.

NR: Who designs the color schemes, the set designer or you? Or, do you work together?

JG: We work together. The set designer's going to design the rooms as he feels they should be designed. The clothes go in those rooms. In life, people don't have clothes because they know a room's going to be a certain color.

NR: That's true, but if you had a red room you probably wouldn't want someone in peach in that red room.

JG: That would look very interesting actually.

NR: Who decided the colors? Chauvelin had to be in black because that was in the script.

JG: But that was what they all wore - all those revolutionaries.

NR: But Percy's all in creamy things pretty much and Marguerite's in the red family for the most part.

JG: Well she's an actress. She was very flamboyant. I kind of kept thinking if you were a leading lady, you'd wear something "center stage," wouldn't you?

NR: I suppose you would. Who decided to make Rachel (York) a redhead?

JG: We all felt that it was warmer. Paul Huntley, who designed the wigs, is excellent at helping to choose what is the right color for a person on stage. He discourages blond many times. I've worked with Paul for many, many years and he always says that blond can be aging on stage. It can look almost gray. A warmer color gives more focus to the face.

NR: Well, she looked wonderful as a redhead. Now, Douglas is blond.

JG: He isn't really. It's quite brown with highlights. It wasn't blond blond.

NR: I think the lights made him look blonder.

JG: That's the trouble, you see? If he was a real blond the lights would make him look washed out.

NR: I don't know if you remember doing it, but many of us have seen the UPN special, The Making of the Scarlet Pimpernel. You were interviewed and you were talking about how an actor can have some input if they want a pocket changed, or a sleeve altered. How does that work?

JG: The actor is bringing that character to life and I feel that you should listen to what the actor says about his character. When you have a fitting, if there's something that he talks about that he has to do, that he has to take a coat off on stage, or he has to put it on, you have to be very aware that that's going to be very difficult. The actor can't be thinking about that. They've got to be thinking about so many other things, so you have to prepare for that, or compensate for that. If an actor has to have a lot of props, then it behooves you to give him a lot of pockets in his clothes because he's going to need them. It's basic common sense really about what people have to do. There's nothing I hate more than getting to a first dress rehearsal, and the actor walks down center stage and will say to a director, "THEY haven't given me a pocket." (It's always THEY.) It's sort of what you don't want to hear, because you've got to be looking at what all the clothes look like and you don't want to be bothered with being anxious about an actor feeling unhappy about not having something, and you don't want the director to have to worry about that. So, you prepare for that by being careful and taking note of what has to be done so that you get it taken care of in the fittings. I always try to have a very good rapport with the stage manager so that every day, or every couple of days, we'll talk. If anything comes up in rehearsal, we'll talk about it so that I can keep abreast of what's going on. I can't sit there at rehearsal every day. I've got too much to get on.

NR: How many dress rehearsals do they normally have?

JG: There's usually a week of technical rehearsals where they will feed the shoes in for one rehearsal so that they all get the feel of the stage with their feet. Then maybe they start putting the wigs on, or wigs and hats so they can get the mikes fitted and they can get them in the right place. Sometimes it's quite gradual. Then you get the clothes on and maybe you do one scene and into the next scene to just get the quick change.

NR: There are some very quick changes in this show.

JG: Yes, very. We worked the scene where the Bounders go up on the boat and change into their clothes to go to France. We rehearsed that a great deal. It just had to be drilled and the clothes had to be made to be put on that quickly. There's a lot of leeway with those things to make it easier. There's a lot of velcro, which we know they didn't have in the 18th century, but we have to try to make them work. Surprisingly enough though, it became almost easier to put a coat on and fasten one button, than to try and get a piece of velcro in the right place.

NR: I know Douglas had that quick change from Grappin into the drawing room. I heard that was really frantic too.

JG: That was very tough. He had killer things to do.

NR: Is Percy going to be taxed as much in the new version?

JG: It's going to be hard. It's different though. It's different coming into the Neil Simon because it's a smaller house and the scenery is redesigned so there's going to be a different sort of ground area to deal with.

NR: Plus, they're going out on the road...

JG: Yes. It's not complicated and we don't have the mechanism that we had at the Minskoff, so I think it will be simpler.

NR: What do you do when there's a costume emergency, such as split seams or if zippers break on the way onto the stage?

JG: I don't worry about those things. (laughing) I let the wardrobe supervisors worry about that.

NR: What do they do?

JG: It is terrible when a zipper goes. You hope it doesn't happen very often and you hope someone is there to cope.

NR: Do you find that you use velcro or zippers more often than buttons for speed?

JG: Not really. It's not really faster. If the men have a coat with three buttons, they can actually get one button fastened quicker than they can pull a zipper up, quicker than they can match a piece of velcro. Velcro is very treacherous because it might not match correctly, it can have a lump in it, it makes noise and it can give if it's not in the right place. There's nothing more reliable than a big hook. If you're putting a skirt on a girl, one big strong hook is as good as anything you can do.

NR: I remember that I read an interview with you when you were doing High Society and Melissa Errico had that fast change on stage with the riding costume. She wore a three piece suit and I think you said you sewed all the pieces together and then just split the sides.

JG: Yes. That was tough. The jacket was separate, but the blouse, the vest and the jodhpurs were all in one. That was a very fast change.

NR: So, what's ahead for you? You told me you're going to do The Great Gatsby at the Met. And of course you're working on Scarlet Pimpernel 3 which evidently has more changes than we're realizing.

JG: Oh, much more. Oh, you're going to love the second act. That beginning is going to be so thrilling. It's all gold and silver and it will shimmer.

NR: Did you get rid of those old masks that we all call flyswatters?

JG: We still have them. They're actually so authentic and it was so wonderful to use those masks and play games with people. It was a different world.

NR: Well I thought they would be fancier.

JG: They're very elegant - that little clean black and that little stick.

NR: (laughing) OK, if you say so.

JG: I'm very fond of them.

NR: Is there anything else that you're looking forward to?

JG: Well, I'm doing The Great Gatsby for the Metropolitan Opera and I'm scheduled to design clothes for Cherry Jones in a new production of Moon for the Misbegotten. I'm working on a musical called The Dead by Richard Nelson and a wonderful Irish musician. I'm working on a new musical for next year based on the stories of Hans Christian Anderson, directed by Martha Clark which is going to be on Broadway. I think that's about it.

NR: So, do you think the Tony award is going to come?

JG: No.

NR: I believe Douglas called you the "Susan Lucci" of the Tony Awards.

JG: I am. But she won finally.

NR: She did. You have twelve nominations, I believe. Is that right?

JG: Um hmm.

NR: Wow. He said it was unfair and I agree with him.

JG: Well, I'm sort of enjoying the fact that I feel I've got past the point where I worry about it. As is often said, it's very nice to be nominated. Actually, there's a certain satisfaction in having had the first nomination. I think it was 1964 for Tartuffe which I designed at Lincoln Center. That was when Lincoln Center was down at Washington Square. The fact that I've been in the nominating part for 36 years is encouraging.

NR: Yes it is. That's wonderful. Thank you so much.

JG: You're very welcome.

Jane was just a delightful person to speak with. I can see why so many directors have chosen her to assist in bringing their creative projects to life. Judging from the sketches I saw, I'm sure the ball scene in SP3 will be magnificent, and I'm looking forward to seeing it for the first time.

Questions suggested by:

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