Paul Tazewell

He is the old world, they are the new.

That visual duality, modern bodies in period shape versus one man preserved in all his pomp, is what makes...

the story of democracy unfolding so compelling.

It takes the historically familiar to frame a modern perception of how our nation was formed.

And suddenly, there's Thomas Jefferson.

Tommy Kail, our director, and I decided, let's make him a rock star.

So on stretched Jefferson, in flamboyant purple, modeled after a pop icon.

Not by chance.

That was a statement.

It was history isn't dry or static.

It's alive.

It's charismatic.

It's complicated.

Even in subtle contrast, like Hamilton's vibrant green suits versus Burr's muted raisin palette, I was planting seeds, setting up a visual duel, until finally, at the end, the two men stand together, both in black capes,

equal in power, equal in tragedy, balanced, not in life, but in history's memory.

The costumes weren't decoration, they were commentary, a way to ask, whose history is this and who gets to own it?

From the Founding Fathers, I jumped to 1950s New York with Spielberg's West Side Story.

Again, us versus them, jets versus sharks, white versus Puerto Rican.

For the jets, I leaned into blue-collar toughness, denim, polos, sneakers, the uniform of boys rooted in concrete.

For the sharks, I turned to Latin textiles,