Choreographer and Hopewell native Sam Pinkleton never expected to be directing dancers for a Broadway show, and costume designer and VCU professor Toni Leslie-James at first didn't know where theater might take her. Maybe, to the Tony Awards.
Pinkleton, a graduate of the Appomattox Regional Governor's School in Petersburg, is nominated for his Broadway choreography in the production of “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812,” which racked up 12 Tony nominations — the most of any show this season.
Tony Award-nominated actor and Hopewell native Sam Pinkleton (Photo courtesy Matt Ross Public Relations)
He’s not yet 30 and has worked in New York most of his adult life. Still, he recalls after the show opened and the play’s complement convened at the Plaza Hotel in spiffy formal wear, the realization coming to him, “I just opened a Broadway musical. My mom’s here. All these wonderful people. And a few years ago I was at Carter G. Woodson Middle getting yelled at by bullies. I’m a long way from home. And I wouldn’t have predicted it.”
Just as Pinkleton has risen in the ranks on Broadway, "The Great Comet," created by Dave Malloy, has streaked across the firmament of the New York theater scene since its 2012 debut. The production began in a 99-seat theater with a cast of 10 and through successive venue changes grew more complex. Music and dance in the show evolved from incidental to integral and occur throughout the playing space and among the audience. The director, Rachel Chavkin, chose Pinkleton to shepherd the expanded movement and dance that went to the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a 500-seat proscenium-stage theater.
Today, the “Comet” shows in the 1,200-seat Imperial Theatre and features a cast of 38 — one of whom is Richmond’s own Mary Page Nance from the successful “Finding Neverland,” where we caught her topping traffic.
Of his career thus far, Pinkleton says, “Every project I’ve worked on is the result of extreme kindness and a belief in what I’m doing is worthwhile.”
Tony Award-nominated costume designer and VCUarts associate professor Toni-Leslie James (Photo by Terry Brown courtesy VCUarts)
Toni-Leslie James, a Richmond-based costume designer and associate professor and director of costume design in the Department of Theatre in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts, is also up for a Tony this year, for her work on the revival of August Wilson’s mid-1970s-set “Jitney” at the Manhattan Theatre Club. The play received six Tony nominations.
James, a Clairton, Pennsylvania, native, is busy with several projects, which, if you are in the business of show and you’re making a career, is “a big sort of crazy,” she says in an email. Our correspondence commenced after she’d returned from three solid days of costume fittings at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was in the midst of the awards shows, VCU's end-of-the-year portfolio reviews and “Sunday in the Park with George” in Minneapolis, and planning the biggest show of the year — her daughter's wedding on June 24. In addition to the Tony, she’s received two Drama Desk Awards nominations for Outstanding Costume Design, for both “Jitney” and “Come From Away,” about passengers of a jet liner grounded in Newfoundland following 9/11. The Drama Desk event was June 4.
James credits another VCU alum for helping her designs look good: draper John Kristiansen and his New York Inc., and the tailor Valentina, who built the costumes for both the nominated plays.
James began her study of theater at Ohio State, to the shock of her mother, who thought her daughter wanted to be a dentist. James says the choice surprised her, too, because she didn’t know what her theater track would be. Acting didn’t suit her. She explains, “I tried set design, but couldn't a draw straight line; lighting design, but I'm afraid of electricity.” Richard Nichols, a professor, encouraged her to join the stage crew, and this seemed the place for her. “I had success with stage management and thought that was my path — until I took costume design with Professor Michelle Guillot. She is the reason I'm a costume designer.”
After graduation, James returned home to hunt for work and soon after went to visit a friend in New York. When James boarded the bus, her mother began crying, though James would be gone only a week. James recalls, “She told me that there was nothing in PA for me. If I found something to do, don't come back. And that's how I got to New York.” Which is why for the past 37 years she’s maintained a Brooklyn address.
About a decade ago, she arrived in Richmond during a period of dissatisfaction with her career. “I came to VCU as a guest artist, and my husband and I fell in love with the city,” she says. She took the opportunity when a teaching position arose.
James has amassed 29 theater award nominations, and numerous awards since making her off-Broadway costuming debut in 1990, and her designs have helped actors create characters for stage, television and film. This is her second Tony Award nomination.
The 2017 Tony Awards, hosted by Kevin Spacey, will air Sunday, June 11, at 8 p.m. Eastern time on CBS.
