Loquasto, Mackie & More Honored with TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards for Excellence in Design

Designers Santo Loquasto and Bob Mackie are among the recipients of this year's TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards, which will be presented at a ceremony on March 23 at the Hudson Theatre. For his achievements as both a costume and set designer, Loquasto will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Award's special Robert L. B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatrical Design. Legendary costume and fashion designer Mackie will receive the 2007 TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award.

The awards are given in honor of costume designer Irene Sharaff, whose design trademarks were, according to a statement from the Theatre Development Fund, "her elegance and attention to detail," as well as "enormous depth and intelligence, equally secure with both contemporary and period costumes." That same excellence is exemplified by the winners of the 2007 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards, who were selected by the TDF Costume Collection's Advisory Committee, which is comprised of leading members of the theatrical costume design community.

Loquasto's award honors an artist whose mastery of his or her craft as exemplified through his or her body of work, in one or more areas of theatrical design. He has designed the sets and/or costumes for over 58 Broadway productions, earning 14 Tony nominations and taking home the prize three times. His most recent Broadway credits include Movin' Out, A Touch of the Poet, Three Days of Rain, Shining City, and The Times They Are A-Changin', and he will be represented on Broadway this spring by Prelude to a Kiss, Inherit the Wind and 110 in the Shade.

Mackie, who receives his award in honor of achieving great distinction and a mastery of the art over the course of his career, is a nine-time Emmy Award winner whose fashion designs have helped create icons out of entertainers like Diana Ross, Elton John, Carol Burnett, Better Middler and Cher. Credits include countless TV shows and films, as well as many theatrical productions, like Moon over Buffalo, Putting It Together and the revival of On the Town with Bernadette Peters and Phyllis Newman.

In addition to the awards for Loquasto and Mackie, costume designer Murell Horton will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award which honors a designer of distinction early in his or her career; theatre craftsman/designer Kermit Love will get the TDF/Irene Sharaff Artisan Award in recognition of an outstanding supportive contribution in the field of costume technology and designer and director Rouben Ter-Arutunian will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Posthumous Award, which celebrates and remembers those artists who have pioneered the art of costume design, setting the standard for years to come.