Andy Griffith donates sword to Lost Colony's recovery effort

ROANOKE ISLAND

The task of replacing the costumes for “The Lost Colony” is the latest challenge for William Ivey Long, a Broadway designer who has won five Tony Awards and has a history of his own with the outdoor drama.

Nearly 80 percent of the show’s costumes were lost in a fire Sept. 11 at the costume shop at Waterside Theatre. That includes at least 50,000 pieces that must come together to create more than 1,000 “costume looks” and the work needs to be finished by opening day, May 30.

“I’m going to die trying,” Long said Thursday at the production’s business office. “We’ve bitten off a lot and we’re just driving along.”

Color sketches and photographs of the play’s characters in costume were pinned on a board behind Long. To his side, examples of the colonists’ garb were displayed on dressmaking models. A sword, donated by actor Andy Griffith, who wielded the weapon when he played Sir Walter Raleigh in the play, lay across a table strewn with books of costume sketches and drawings by Elizabethan artist John White.

Long, whose current shows include “Young Frankenstein,” “Hairspray,” “Curtains” and “Chicago,” has been associated with “The Lost Colony” for 38 seasons. His parents were involved with the play when he was a child, and he spent many hours in the costume shop with designer Irene Smart Rains. He credits Rains with giving him the foundation for his career.

The fire resulted in $2.7 million in losses. Long intends to use the fresh start to lend “The Lost Colony” more realism. For instance, the new costumes will more accurately reflect the way White depicted native dress in his drawings.

Holding up a White drawing of the wife of an Indian chief, he acknowledges her bare chest. “Unfortunately – topless,” he said with a playful grin. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with that.”

His goal is to clothe the colonists and the investors in the class- conscious manner typical of 16th-century English life. The 117 men, women and children in the English colony that disappeared without a trace after August 1587 included a large number of gentry, who wore more elegant styles. Long said he wants to do it right because of his commi tment to the show.

“Not only that, in a pragmatic sense, the American public has become so educated on this era,” he said, alluding to movies about Elizabethan England. “I think we have a responsibility to the American public to be as historically correct as we can.”

The working class among the colonists wore fabrics dyed in berry colors, making them look “positively like a Bruegel painting.” The gentry would wear lush fabrics with lots of decorations, and the men would carry swords.

The upcoming season will be the first time the show will allow the costumes to illustrate the characters’ class. “It will probably be a bit incongruous-looking,” Long said, “but it will be really interesting.”

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green, “The Lost Colony” has been staged in what is now Fort Raleigh National Historic Site since 1937, except during World War II.

After the fire, which has been ruled accidental, the production went into overdrive in its recovery efforts. So far, $1,793,294 has been received, awarded or pledged, Executive Director Carl Curnutte said. That amount includes the $500,000 for the costume shop replacement that the National Park Service is funding.

The 6,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed by mid-March.

Long has given up doing two other shows so that he can concentrate on getting the costumes completed , although he won’t venture a guess when or even how he’s going to get it all done.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take,” he said, shrugging. “All my waking hours.”

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com