Linda Cho—Award-Winning Costume Designer

Linda Cho’s status as a fashion icon in the theatre industry goes beyond her Broadway credits, her off-Broadway credits and her credits at many of the country’s major regional theatres. That certainly burnished Cho’s image as one of theatre’s most creative costume designers, but one not-so-small item that casts a big aura didn’t hurt either.

Her Tony Award. The one she received in 2014 for designing the costumes for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, which ran on Broadway for 26 months between November 2013 and January 2016. Cho also earned a Tony Award nomination for her costume designs for Anastasia.

Now, SCR audiences can see Cho’s costume design artistry in person this spring with Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical. Directed by SCR Artistic Director David Ivers and the centerpiece to SCR’s 60th season, Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical runs April 5-May 4 on the Segerstrom Stage.

Cho’s designs span the globe, from the Stratford Festival to the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hong Kong Performing Arts Center, National Theater Taipei and Canadian Stage Company. She served as the American Costume Design curator for the International Prague Quadrennial from 2007-2011, and collaborated with noted choreographer Michael Mao on The Firecracker, which enjoyed a successful tour through the United States and China.

Domestically, Cho’s designs were seen in New York at Theater for a New Audience, Lincoln Center 3, Manhattan Theatre Club, Juilliard School, New York’s Public Theater, Atlantic Theater Company and Vineyard Theatre, among others. Her numerous regional theatre credits include La Jolla Playhouse, The Guthrie Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage, Williamstown Theater Festival, Philadelphia Theater Company and The Old Globe, where she won the Craig Noel Award from the San Diego Critics Circle for her designs for Pericles.

Cho was also awarded the TDF (Theatre Development Fund)/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award, the Henry Hewes Design Award and the Ruth Morley Design Award from the League of Professional Theatre Women.

Cho’s impact on costume design carries over to the next generation. She has been a guest-teaching artist at Yale School of Drama, where she earned her MFA, along with New York University, Broadway Theatre Institute and Kennedy Center Summer Design Intensive.

Before earning her MFA at Yale, Cho studied fine arts and fashion at the Paris American Academy and earned a BA in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal.