O Beautiful
Emerson Stage
Directed by Benny Sato Ambush
Costume Design by Jez Insalaco

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Commentary on what it means to live in America is the overarching theme of this play. O Beautiful is about what it’s means when “We the People” are no longer united. A red, white, blue, and gray color palette helped emphasize this idea through costumes, but it also unified the look of the many large 27-character crowd scenes in the show. Green was used to represent outcasts: the stronger the shade, the more outcast the character. Each family and  peer group needed to have a sense a unity or discord through their costumes, either through the color palette or style.

On the protagonist’s journey to the afterlife we meet three celestial characters: A fiery Joan of Arc, a literally headless Saint Denis, and a grumpy St. Paul.

Moments of debate and the conflicts of day-to-day life are intercut against the backdrop of conversations with the American “Founding Fathers” on a right-wing conservative talk show.  Depending on how propagandizing their character was, the costumes ranged from more to less extravagant while staying recognizably colonial. In an effort to contextualize certain statements made by these fathers in today’s America, the “Founding Fathers” were cast as a range of diverse women.

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Photography by Marisa Jack