Shelf Life

It’s hard to imagine Broadway musical history without legendary costume designer and FIT alum Patricia Zipprodt (1925–99). She received 11 Tony Award nominations and won three—for Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Cabaret (1966), and Sweet Charity (1986)—and also designed Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975).

Before she died, Zipprodt worked on an illustrated memoir with Arnold Wengrow, now a professor emeritus of drama at the University of North Carolina Asheville. This spring, the book If the Song Doesn’t Work, Change the Dress (Bloomsbury) was finally published, including research that Wengrow conducted in the Special Collections unit of FIT’s Gladys Marcus Library.

Zipprodt, Fashion Design ’53, already had a degree from Wellesley when she attended FIT, back when the college held classes at the Central High School of Needle Trades, three blocks south.

In her typically spirited style, she writes, “I kept going down the ‘up’ staircase and getting demerits. If I was sick (I had a lot of strep throat at that time) I had to bring a note from home. I became my own mother. I would write to the dean and say, ‘Patricia Zipprodt couldn’t go to school today because she had strep throat. Signed, Patricia Zipprodt.’”

In 1977, she received the Mortimer C. Ritter Award, presented to an outstanding FIT Art and Design graduate. —Alex Joseph