Paul Taswell

I was excelling very quickly.

It was in the direction of costumes.

And I made a decision my junior year that I would devote myself to costume design and live vicariously through other characters.

You know, where I might not be cast in certain roles because of how I looked.

As a designer, I could be anyone.

I could live through that process of character development and growth.

what they would wear.

It just so happens that I wasn't going to be on stage playing the role.

I mean, I would give it up to, and I love working with Lin.

We worked together on In the Heights first.

But I also want to throw in and acknowledge Thomas Kael, who was the director of both In the Heights and of Hamilton.

Because it was Thomas Kail that I was directly engaging with for the overall production.

You know, I had a large body of work that I did between Bringing to Noise, Bringing to Funk, and Hamilton.

And all of that work defines where I was creatively as a designer.

to be able to step into Hamilton and do what you were suggesting, which is being in control of the imagery that I was using as it relates to these characters that we know, our forefathers and the world around them, but to show it through the lens of a modern voice.

And making choices about silhouette and very directly research silhouette and where it's useful.

And movement as well.

And that's where my, you know, my background in dance, that's, you know, I'm always infusing that into my design because it just becomes part of the performance.

You know, the extension of a costume or fabric from the body and how it...

connects to and is reactive of how the body moves is paramount for me because you get an emotional result from that.