San Diego-raised costume designer Gregg Barnes was on the phone from a London theater, just hours before the West End production of the musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada” was to begin previews.
The three-time Tony Award winner designed the costumes for that show, as he has for so many others, including “Pretty Woman,” “Mean Girls,” “Something Rotten!,” “Kinky Boots,” “Legally Blonde,” “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “Dreamgirls.” Although based in New York, he’ll also be in London for productions “Hercules” and “The Greatest Showman.”
And then there’s the musical adaptation of yet another film, the classic comedy “Some Like It Hot,” the most recent show for which he earned a Tony. A touring production of the musical arrives Tuesday in his old hometown and he carved out a few minutes to chat about the show.
It’s a pretty good resume for someone who grew up in “a Little League” family, his brother being the ballplayer.
“I just kind of went along and sat in the stands and ate popcorn,” Barnes says. “I wasn’t ever part of the game. I had no interest — and still really don’t.”
While his parents liked movies and his mom could reenact a whole film in the living room — “She did an amazing ‘Gone With the Wind,’” he says — they weren’t regular consumers of live theater.
“I was one of those kids that never really knew what I wanted to do. I loved stories, so I thought I’d be an English teacher, and I went to college for that,” the SDSU alum says. “And then, while I was there, I took a costume history class as a humanities elective, and it was like I found my ion.”
With the encouragement of a designer who came to speak to that class, he moved to New York City, where he earned a master’s degree in design from New York University and pursued a life in the theater.
His dad suggested a plan: “‘If you’re not famous … in about five years, why don’t you come back?’” Barnes recalls. “And I said, ‘Oh, let’s see how it goes.’ Well, it took me 16 years to get my first Broadway show and another six to get my second show on Broadway.
“My five-year plan was a 22-year plan.”
Before he’d left San Diego, while working as an actor in a show, a young Barnes met an even younger Casey Nicholaw, a San Diego dancer who would go on to a career as a theater director and choreographer. Nicholaw’s own impressive resume includes several of Barnes’ shows, as well as others, most notably “The Book of Mormon.” Nicholaw, Barnes says, arrived in New York after he did to pursue dancing.
“And then he made this career transition, and I was just the lucky pal that was standing by his side,” Barnes says. “We’ve known each other for over 40 years.”
It sounds as if Nicholaw, the director and choreographer of “Some Like It Hot,” didn’t have to beg him to jump aboard the tap dance-filled show, which is set in Chicago during Prohibition and sees a pair of musicians fleeing the Windy City, disguised as women, after witnessing some deadly mob business.
“It operates on so many levels,” Barnes says. “And what I love about it is that the story involves all walks of life. There are gangsters. There are showbiz folks. There are dancers and showgirls and an all-girl band.
“I love that the heart of the story is about finding your true self.”
He notes that the idea of a man in a dress isn’t necessarily as hilarious a notion as it was when the Billy Wilder-directed movie — which was named the funniest of all time by the American Film Institute — arrived in 1959, with Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in the starring roles.
To find the right appearances for the musical, which debuted on Broadway in late 2022, Barnes says the production set up a workshop where he was able to try a bunch of different pieces on the actors playing the fleeing musicians, Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee.
“We had a bunch of wigs and we had the makeup artists there and we had some bras and dresses to just see where we wanted to go with the look of the two men that are running from the mafia,” he says. “Some men make a beautiful woman, and some men don’t.”
Among the changes from the film include the characters heading not to Florida but to Barnes’ and Nicholaw’s hometown of San Diego. It wasn’t just nostalgia that led to the change. The 1959 film was filmed in San Diego, with the historic Hotel del Coronado subbing in for a seaside Florida hotel.
The creative team responsible for the show also includes Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin (book), Scott Wittman (lyrics) and Marc Shaiman (lyrics and music).
“The orchestrations are thrilling,” Barnes says. “(The show has) this rich, old — I don’t want to say ‘old-school’ because it makes it sound antiquated, but it’s got this golden-age-Broadway sound to it. It’s spectacular.”
He uses that last word to describe the touring company, as well.
“This tour is the first reincarnation of the show since the Broadway production — we haven’t done it internationally or anywhere else — and this company … is just absolutely spectacular, and they make it their own,” he says. “I love that when a piece has enough backstory and texture that you don’t feel like you’re seeing a pale imitation. I mean, you get the beauty of what the Broadway audience saw and felt, but you get to see it told by a completely different company of storytellers.”
As for his role in telling the story, did he lean on his work from any one of his many previous shows?
“You know, it’s funny — you always try to reinvent yourself … for every project,” Barnes says. “But the truth is, we are who we are, you know? (Stephen) Sondheim didn’t write music that sounds like Andrew Lloyd Webber, and I have certain things that I love and that I know work.
“Your past becomes almost like a backdrop to your future work in a sense; it informs your decisions,” he continues. “And I guess that’s why people hire you at the end of the day — if you’re unique. Hopefully, you’re a good collaborator and don’t just rehash the same four ideas over and over. I try to go into everything with a new, fresh set of spectacles.
And, well, what is it like winning that highly coveted Tony?
“Oh my God, it’s crazy — I swear. I always say, ‘I’m the only person that when they’re announcing the winner, I pray it’s not me because I’m so terrified of the speech part,” he says. “But (“Some Like It Hot” was) my third Tony, so I’ve had a little experience getting up there, you know, and hopefully thanking people appropriately and not boring everybody out of their seat.”
Pretty good for a guy whose five-year plan took more than two decades.
‘Some Like It Hot’
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Feb. 2
Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., downtown
Tickets: $56 to $245
