‘Why Is There No Tony for Best Wigs?’

An excerpt of this interview first appeared in Stage Whisperer, Vulture’s weekly newsletter for theater gossip, interviews, and more. Sign up here.

The best sight gag of this theater season is a wig. Fallen Angels follows two women, Julia (Kelli O’Hara) and Jane (Rose Byrne), who have a ridiculous drunken night together. When Jane reemerges the next morning, her hair is completely out of whack with a tuft sticking up and the whole mane completely bedraggled. It sends the audience into fits of hysterics that stop the show for literal minutes each night.

For wig designers David Brown and Victoria Tinsman, it’s clearly Tony-worthy work. Unfortunately for them, there is no competitive Tony category for wig designers. We chatted with Brown and Tinsman about Fallen Angels, that beloved wig, and how it feels to go chronically unrecognized.

What is the research process like for a show like Fallen Angels?
David Brown: A lot of my research is from photography from the period. I have a large library of yearbooks which go back to before the turn of the century. They give you the real person. It tells you what an athlete looks like at that time. It tells you what an academic looks like. It tells you what the teachers look like. Jeff wanted to push this production more into the ’30s with a modern feel to it. The truth is, if we went back and we honestly literally represented the late ’20s, the modern audience would be like, That is ugly. But it’s true.

For people who maybe are not that knowledgeable about wigs, can you give me some guidelines for what makes a good wig?
Victoria Tinsman: The best thing about a good wig is if the audience isn’t looking at the wig. They shouldn’t really be like, “Wow, that’s a great wig.” I was talking with the ushers at the theater and some of them were like, “Kelli’s wig is so gorgeous,” but then they thought Rose’s was her real hair. I’m like, “Okay, good.” I don’t even correct them and tell them it’s a wig, because they don’t need to know that.

The moment that Rose walks in with her messed up wig is one of the great sight gags of the year. How did that develop?
V.T.: We knew going into it that the wigs would go through a progression — that as the show went on, they’re getting more and more intoxicated and a little more silly, and their wigs were going to start evolving. We didn’t anticipate that they would evolve as much as they did, but it was a collaborative effort with a lot of people involved to get it where it is now. I don’t think it said in the script, “She comes in with crazy hair.” It stemmed from Scott being like, “We think her wig needs to be messy.” Now, our hair supervisor, Richard Orton, is back there helping Rose achieve this look every night. We kept seeing it and saying, “It needs to be bigger.” It landed where it is now and it seems to be appreciated by all of the audience.

D.B.: We knew things had to get messy. It really has become a huge topic of conversation. I get people all the time reaching out to me about that and they’re like, “I love that second wig.” And I’m like, “It’s the same wig.”

Wait, sorry. I didn’t fully understand this. Every night it’s the same Rose Byrne wig being teased?
D.B.: Yes! The bigger thing is what the poor hairdresser has to do to then bring it back down for the curtain call, so she looks like she did earlier in the production.

Let me get this straight: It’s one wig. She wears it throughout the whole first act. She goes backstage. They tease it like crazy. And then they get it back flat by the end by curtain call.
V.T.: Then it has to be reset for every performance to look smooth and stunning.

Why is it not just two wigs?
D.B.: It’s a limited run and it’s Roundabout. It’s a financial issue. We didn’t know we were going to go that far initially. If we did, we would have said, “If that’s what you want to do, we should really have two wigs.”

V.T.: We probably would have pushed for a second wig or even a piece to go on the first wig. But it’s happening every night.

D.B.: If the show were going to run longer, at this point, we’d be like, “Okay, guys, let’s now address the fact that in three months, this wig is going to be destroyed.”

The Tonys are coming up, but you guys aren’t nominated, because there is no Tony for wig design. Why do you think that is?
V.T.: We’ve been asking that for years. Why is there no Tony for wigs? The hair alone should be looked at just as much as the lights and costumes. We’ve been trying to petition for it for a while.

D.B.: I have to be kind of vague in what I’m saying, but people are concerned that, if there’s a Tony for hair, then it’s going to cost them more money. However, it also gives you an opportunity to add one more Tony to your haul. Lost Boys is one of my shows. We just got 12 Tony nominations. I’m the only designer that wasn’t able to be included in that, and that sucks.

What is an example of a barrier to getting you guys recognized?
D.B.: If our union is trying to negotiate for us to get a Tony award when they’re negotiating with the Broadway League, then the League might say, “If we give you that, then we’re not going to give you this.” It’s definitely still being talked about. People just don’t know how to really take a grasp of it at this point and get them to acknowledge us. There’s an Oscar and an Emmy. I’ve been nominated for Emmys for TV stuff. Theater is literally the only area in our industry that does not acknowledge us.