Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2012 - 77

Working chronologically, Unruh divides
Walton's career into five sections. Part One
(1934-1955) quick-steps through his childhood and school days in England, pausing at
moments that illuminate young Tony's headlong rush towards a theatrical future. These
include meeting up with his wife-to-be, Julie
Andrews, already acting professionally at age
twelve. Sketches for marionettes from that time
show that, at sixteen, Walton already possessed
the sure, fluid line and instinct for expressing
character that distinguishes his work as a costume designer.
Like most theatre artists trained in the
European tradition, Walton was encouraged
to (and did) explore all of the theatrical disciplines, instead of being channeled toward one
in particular. He has continued his multiplicity to this day, as a set and costume designer,
production designer, caricaturist, book illustrator, poster artist, producer, and most recently, director.
Part Two (1956-1961) offers highlights
of Walton's early professional years, which
got off to a running start after he followed Andrews to New York when she came to do My
Fair Lady: taking the United Scenic Artists' entrance exam and designing for Noël Coward,
meanwhile commuting between New York and
London, where he was also getting his start in
the West End. Focusing as much on the people
in Walton's life as on design issues, Unruh
gives space throughout to the designer's gift for
collaboration. Anecdotes from the early years
illustrate that the colleagues you meet and collaborate well with as a young professional are
people you'll work (and play) with for the rest
of your life. And what a remarkable cadre this
proved to be for young TW: Barbara Matera,
Richard Pilbrow, Hal Prince, Mike Nichols, to
name a few, with cameos by William and Jean
Eckert, Boris Aronson, Jean Rosenthal, Abe
Feder, and George Abbot.
Part Three (1962-1966) tells the storybook beginnings of Walton's marriage to
Andrews, soon doomed by the conflicting successes of two rocketing careers, as both moved
into film, she to Hollywood and he to England
and Europe. The simultaneous personal and

professional pressures drove Walton to work
himself to near collapse.
The remaining sections (Part Four: 1966-
1995 and Part Five: 1996-2011) cover the
maturity of Walton's career. I was in and out of
the Walton studio in the early 1970s, for short
stretches and a few long ones. Working for Tony
was both delightful and exhausting. One got so
swept up in the busy, welcoming, sometimes
glittering maelstrom of the household, it was
often hard to tell where work ended and one's
own life took up again. And as Unruh makes
quite clear, the Work was the undisputed center
of that local universe.

Cautionary tale
Is it unreasonable here to suspect a whiff of
the cautionary tale in Unruh's insistent numberings of the projects Walton took on or in
his detailing of fatigue illnesses and the nickname Workaholic Walton? Certainly such reporting rounds out the portrait of the man, but

USITT Presents the Designs of

Chronological order

does it shed light on the quality of the work
itself? This reader would have preferred a bit
less personal drama (and fewer plot summaries!). Instead, why not larger, more arresting
images? Perhaps in an effort to include a greater range of visual material, the size and clarity of individual images has been decreased. I
missed the bolder full-page spreads of earlier
monographs in this series.
Fortunately, in Part Four, the useful connectedness of text, quotation, and image
increases markedly. The discussion of the
musical Pippin (and later, of Stoppard's The
Real Thing) offers valuable insight into the
director/designer relationship and on the design process as a whole. Light is inherent to
Walton's designs, both in conception and execution, but instead of adding lighting to his
long list of skills, Walton chose to form lasting
creative relationships with some of our most
brilliant lighting designers, such as Tharon
Musser, Richard Pilbrow, and Jules Fisher.

nnouncing the publication of USITT's
eighth monograph on American designers.
Tony Walton is a multi-talented, three-time Tony
Award-winning artist whose Broadway career
includes set designs, costume designs, and show
posters for dozens of hits like Chicago, Guys and
Dolls, Pippin, and Anything Goes. In recent years, Mr.
Walton has adopted a new career in directing for
Off-Broadway and regional theatres.
Written by Delbert Unruh, The Designs of Tony
Walton includes a complete design chronology and
a list of Walton's awards and honors.
$30.00 (members) * $35.00 (non-members)
www.shopusitt.org * 8 0 0 * 9 3 8 * 7 4 8 8

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