A Paul Tazewell Mystery
I was visiting Minneapolis recently and ventured to a local Bins thrift store with a friend. I didn’t find the facility all that impressive, though I did find a few treasures, a large black artist portfolio among them. My 3-year-old granddaughter loves “doing art” so I thought the portfolio might be fun for her. I flipped through the portfolio while I waited for my friend to finish her Bins shopping, pitching various papers and saving anything that looked interesting, this page among them.
I surmised the original portfolio owner was a costume designer, but I did not spend time researching. I paid for my haul, portfolio included, and moved on. When I returned home, I began cleaning and sorting my treasures. Unclear if I can part with the stunning Louis Vuitton shawl I snagged, and my daughter claimed the pristine 1950s applique quilt, so a successful outing for sure. I began to puzzle over the prior owner of the portfolio.
It was difficult as the only name I could find was “Jean” and “Jeannie”. Sorting through pages, I eventually realized Jean had been a dressmaker, though no address or last name was to be found. There were images from different costume designers thanking “Jeannie” for her work, and I began to read the various notes. Some were high quality prints of characters while others were original sketches. Many were signed, though illegibly. This one, however, had a very clear signature: Paul Tazewell. The sketch, dated 1995, was for a “Claudine” character.
Off to the internet I went, hunting for a “Claudine” in a play or movie. I did not get particularly far. Claudine was a movie, released in 1974, starring Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones, both of whom won Academy Awards for their roles. The movie’s costume work was done by Bernard Johnson, and most obviously, my 1995 sketch was not related to the 1974 movie. While I have not watched the movie, some of the reviews make it clear it was a landmark film. The lead was a black woman, the producer was a woman, Hannah Weinstein, and the screenplay was created by a married couple, Tina and Lester Pine. The work depicted the pain, limitations and responsibilities of black motherhood, as well as the problems of raising 6 kids within Harlem and the welfare system. These themes are depicted with love and understanding rather than censure. (An interesting 1974 newspaper review: https://aadl.org/node/197115.)
I should point out I am not much of a television or movie watcher. Oddly, and for reasons I cannot explain without therapy, I simply do not turn on television, preferring instead to sew, read or do a myriad of other things. On occasion, if I do want to watch something, I end up calling one of my kids to walk me through how the heck to turn things on with all the remote controls scattered about. I do love theater, and will attend plays and musicals when possible. In fact, my trip to Minnesota was to see a stage production of Life of Pi, as I had read a fascinating review of the puppetry for the production (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/21/theater/life-of-pi-tiger-puppet.html). The Bins outing was a fun extra.
Unfortunately, my internet research did not help me discover any play created from the Claudine story line, and so my 1995 sketch remained a mystery. Nor was I any closer to figuring out who “Jean” was. Since I had a name, Paul Tazewell, I decided to research him and see if I could find Jean that way. Well damn.
Paul Tazewell, born in 1964, is a contemporary costume designer, who began his work on Broadway in 1996 for Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk. He received a Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton (2016). I found his website (https://www.paultazewelldesign.com/) and decided to send him an email to see if he could provide any insight into “Jean” and Claudine. After sending the email with an image of the Claudine work, I dug a bit further into Mr. Tazewell.
Whelp, not being much of a television watcher, I had not watched the Academy Awards the night before. I suspect my email will be remarkably low on Mr. Tazewell’s “to do” list: he won an Academy Award for his work designing the costumes for the movie Wicked, the first black man to do so. Claudine may remain a mystery but Mr. Tazewell’s sketch will have pride of place on my art display wall!
p.s. a dear friend figured out Mr. Tazewell worked at The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis in 1995. So it makes a bit of sense that a dressmaker from the area would have worked on a design he created. Still unclear who our Jean was or what the play might have been, but I”m working on it!