Costume Designer Martin Pakledinaz Dies at 58

Martin Pakledinaz, a costume designer, who has been nominated for 10 Tony awards in the past 15 years and has won twice, and work in opera, dance and regional theater, has made him one of the craftsmen the most prolific phase of his generation, died Sunday at home in Manhattan. Age of 58.

The cause was brain cancer, his agent, Patrick Herold said.

Mr. Pakledinaz (pronounced Leh-pack-Din EHZ) received 1999 Tony Awards for the revival of "Kiss Me, Kate", with Marin Mazzie and Brian Stokes Mitchell, "Millie," a musical based on the film 2002, 1967, Julie Andrews.

Sutton Foster, who won a Tony Award for her performance in the title role of "Millie," said Mr. Pakledinaz costume designs were part of his characterization of Millie, a village girl who comes to New York in early 1920, hoping to marry a rich man.

Their ways of explaining its history, from Kansas City on Sunday in New York neck-girl-Friday clothing and equipment after a series of increasingly scarce designed for the free spirit of a more modern dance Millie from the trap.

"My characters have been defined by the fabric, stitching, the details of his work, his eye," Ms. Foster said in a statement on Monday.

Mr. Pakledinaz Mrs. Foster also designed the costumes in the last shot of "Anything Goes", which won a Tony Award. He was nominated for a Tony for producing and seven people, including "Lend Me a Tenor," "Gypsy," "The Pajama Game", "Golden Boy" and the 2009 revival of "A mocking spirit" .

He received his first nomination for "The Life", a 1997 musical about prostitutes times square, and the last for this season, "Good work if you can get it," starring Matthew Broderick.

Mr. Pakledinaz also designed costumes for the San Francisco Ballet, Mark Morris Dance Group, a Metropolitan Opera production of "Iphigenie en Tauride", 2011, Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular and the "My Week with Marilyn" the sumptuous 2011 film Marilyn Monroe film maker living in Britain in 1956, but won Michelle Williams as Monroe, an Oscar nomination.

Joel Grey, who starred in "Anything Goes," he said in an interview Monday that Mr. Pakledinaz aesthetic decisions had reflected his deep knowledge of the history of American theater.

It was obvious, he said, in his own clothes in the game, as Moonface Martin, a role that was originally played by Bert Lahr and Ed Wynn, then.

"I wanted my character to remember a time when the great comedians inhabited the role," said Grey, "and Martin knew it would be, and how to evoke. This was his particular genius."

Philip Martin Pakledinaz was born in Sterling Heights, Michigan, September 1, 1953, one of eight children of James and Dorothy Pakledinaz.

After graduating from Wayne State University and received his master's degree in drama from the University of Michigan, moved to New York in 1977. His survivors are his sister and brothers.

Mr. Pakledinaz had a long professional relationship with director Peter Sellars, with whom he worked at the Santa Fe Opera and performance venues in Paris, Spain and Salzburg, Austria.

He recently worked with director Stephen Wadsworth in his production of "The Bartered Bride", a joint effort of the Juilliard School and the Metropolitan Opera.

In 2002 Tony accepted the award for best costume for her work in "Millie," who drowned while Pakledinaz thanked "the three miles in my life" - from his mother and two mentors custom design, Theon V. Aldredge and Barbara Matera. Speaking of his profession, he said, "the suits have to say in a moment that the person is feeling, what was -. What changes are taking place"

Patti LuPone, who worked with Mr. Pakledinaz many times, most recently in the 2008 revival of "Gypsy", said the loss was profound theater. "Broadway is less talented," he said.

Read More

21:48 | 0 comments

The Rev. John E. Brooks Dies at 88

The Rev. John I. Brooks, the president with more seniority in the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and as a teacher in the days after the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. set out on a mission that led to the integration than it was all-male institution and almost all white, died Monday in Worcester. He was 88.

The cause was complications of lymphoma, said Ellen Ryder, a spokesman for the university.

On April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King was assassinated in 2200 less than a dozen students from Holy Cross were African Americans, most of them on athletic scholarships.

That month, the father of Brooks, professor of theology, he began to go up and down the East Coast in search of qualified students from high schools to recruit blacks in college, the Jesuits were founded in 1843.

Initially it was his own, paying their expenses. But support quickly followed when the Rev. Raymond J. Swords, president of the university when he learned of his research.

Among the 20 students this year were recruited Father Brooks Clarence Thomas, Judge of the future partner of the United States Supreme Court, Edward P. Jones, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Theodore Wells, who became a successful lawyer, Ed Jr. and Jenkins, wearing a Super Bowl ring, won as a player for the team undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, before going on to become director of the civil rights of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation.

In an interview last month with The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, the father of Brooks asked if he had never imagined that so many students involved would become a success. "They have done marvelously well," he said. "I could not do better. Both were brilliant or lucky. I do not know why."

Two years after the start of his campaign integration, the father of Brooks 29 Santa Cruz became president, succeeding Father Swords. Within a year take place, he would keep for 24 years, the father of Brooks announced that the College would admit women. In the autumn of 1972, approximately 300 units of the student body.

Of the more than 2,800 students currently enrolled at Santa Cruz, more than half are women and nearly 25 percent are minority members.

"Even among the Jesuits, an order progressive, intellectual, and generally represent the church, John Brooks noted," wrote Diane Brady, BusinessWeek editor in chief of Bloomberg, the "Brotherhood", the account of their campaign integration, published this year.

"Although many teachers and priests of the Holy Cross has welcomed the change, as Brooks was difficult to drive this process."

In 1990, Holy Cross and Brandeis University, which has a largely Jewish student body, united in the creation of an endowed chair in each school to promote understanding among students of both religions. "This is an opportunity to take us further along the road to reduce discrimination," said the father of Brooks at the time.

"The vision of the Holy Cross is that the Catholic community in general does not understand our spiritual heritage shared with the Jewish community."

John Edward Brooks was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, July 13, 1923, the eldest of four children of John and Mildred Brooks. His father worked for the telephone company.

The young John was admitted to the Holy Cross in 1942 but joined the army a year later and served in the body's signal to Europe. His academic interests departs from theological scientists.

Immediately after graduating from Holy Cross in 1949 with a degree in physics, joined the Jesuits. After obtaining an MA in philosophy at Boston College in 1954, he returned to Holy Cross as an instructor of mathematics and physics.

After he earned a master's degree in geophysics from Boston University and a doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Gregorian University in Rome.

P. Brooks, who was ordained in 1959, he returned to Santa Cruz, a professor in the department of religious studies and was president from 1964 until being named president.

He is survived by her sisters, Mildred and Marion Brooks, and his brother, Paul.

Father Brooks not only convince young blacks to attend the Holy Cross, Mrs. Brady wrote in "fraternity", but also organized by the university that provides scholarships, and mentor and defended through the years universities are often difficult.

By Clarence Thomas wrote, the father of Brooks, "was a combination of friend, uncle, priest, father, holy and good Samaritan." He cited Judge Thomas: ". I was not part of a program of Father Brooks .... They were symbols of what we were just kids."

Read More

02:23 | 0 comments