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WILKES-BARRE —When he was designing the set and costumes for the 2003 Broadway production “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” it wasn’t difficult for Wilkes-Barre native and King’s College graduate Santo Loquasto to dress Vanessa Redgrave and Brian Dennehy.
But it was a challenge to get Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was rehearsing the part of their son, to wear the right kind of tie.
“Phil would go out the back door and I could never catch him,” Loquasto said last week during a visit to his alma mater, where he accepted an Alumni Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement.
“Finally, one day I went down the stairs with him,” Loquasto said, waving his hand in the shape of a spiral staircase. “I had a bite light (flashlight in my mouth) and three neckties.”
“You DO care!” Hoffman remarked as he chose one of the ties.
Caring about his work — admittedly being passionate about it — has helped Loquasto win Tony Awards for best costume design for “The Cherry Orchard” in 1977, best scenic design for “Cafe Crown” in 1989 and best costume design for “Grand Hotel” in 1990.
This year, he’s been nominated for Tony Awards for best costumes in a musical and best scenic design in a musical, both for the revival of “Hello Dolly.” Winners will be announced during the Tony Awards ceremony which airs at 8 p.m. June 11 on CBS.
“You are a god in the field,” assistant professor of theatre Dave Reynolds said as Loquasto shared an informal lunch with about two dozen theater students, recent graduates and King’s faculty. “Thank you for giving us your time.”
Some of the young thespians said they, like Loquasto, have a strong interest in aspects of stagecraft other than acting.
Rachel Vecellio, from Carlstadt, N.J., for one, said she’d like to be a set designer.
Jon Vojtko, of Wilkes-Barre, said he’s interested in lighting.
And Betty Montgomery, of Philadelphia, said she’s interested in “a little bit of everything.”
“We’ve really built up the tech side,” theater department chair Sheileen Godwin told Loquasto.
When he was a student at King’s — learning from, among others, Godwin’s father, the late theater professor and director J. Gerald Godwin — Loquasto majored in English and dutifully took courses in political science and economics in addition to working on student productions.
“I don’t think I would have gone to a theater school,” he told the lunch group. “I was so obsessed, I wouldn’t have learned anything else.”
Before he graduated from King’s in 1966, he remembers traveling to New York City with fellow students to see “Hello Dolly” on Broadway.
For the show’s revival, 50 years later, he designed a three-story Hay & Feed store for character Horace Vandergelder to run and made sure the set had some “grab bars” to help 70-year-old Bette Midler keep her balance as she played Dolly Levi.
King’s students and theater faculty nodded with admiration as Loquasto reflected on his designs for the films “Big” and “Desperately Seeking Susan,” his work with Woody Allen, and his time spent in theaters close enough to Yale University that he was able to work in their productions while earning an MFA graduate degree.
Whether he was talking about “staying up all night to paint the set and playing a role the next day” or “not sleeping at all during tech week,” the students and faculty nodded, as if they had experienced similar scenarios.
At one point during the lunch, they also realized the red tablecloth had some glitter on it — and a touch of it had ended up on Loquasto’s jacket.
He laughed at that.
“People will say, ‘Look at him. He’s from New York and he’s come in glitter,’” Loquasto said, shaking his head.
