Two-time Tony nominee Carrie Robbins, costume designer for over 30 Broadway productions including Grease, Over Here! and Irving Berlin's White Christmas, dons playwright's garb next week when her pair of one-acts based on short stories by New York surgeon RD Robbins open Off-Broadway at HERE May 21 for a limited run through June 7.
The plays' subject matter is a long way from the glitz and glamour of Broadway musicals. Both depict the grim human costs of war. Sawbones deals with racial dynamics in an ill-equipped field hospital in Virginia during the Civil War. Robbins notes that "During the Civil War, on the North side, the USCT (U.S. Colored Troops), were permitted to fight and die for freedom from slavery. But only 3 men of color who had managed to earn M.D. degrees were commissioned officers and allowed to treat the injured. (They had to get their M.D.s from U of Glasgow & Trinity College, Ontario.)" The play "tells the story of just such a black man, Jebidiah Wall, who, with the help of Dr. Cordell Cuttaridge, awakes to his potential as a man of medicine."
The Diamond Eater, based on a true story told to Robbins, is set in a German camp in 1945 where a Jewish surgeon is enlisted to conduct a twisted medical experiment. Scott Munson's music includes a melody based on the song "Ani Ma'amin" (I Believe), sung by Jewish camp prisoners.
Tazewell Thompson (Porgy and Bess and Margaret Garner (Toni Morrison's first opera) at New York City Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience at Glimmerglass) will direct. Lighting design is by Jorge Arroyo. Robbins herself, recipient of the Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Costume Design in 2012 and four Drama Desk awards, handles costume design.
The casts feature Wynn Harmon (Porgy and Bess on Broadway), Eric Kuttner, Thomas Leverton, Tony Naumovski, Lynn Wright, Gregory Marlow, Alexander Salamat and Jenny Vath.
Robbins's Broadway credits also include Agnes of God, Cyrano (with Frank Langella) and Sweet Bird of Youth with Lauren Bacall. She co-authored the catalog Curtain Call: Celebrating a Century of Women Designing for Live Performance for the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts. Her costume design work has ranged from the sublime to the silly, from Glimmerglass to Saturday Night Live. But as a playwright, her serious side is showing.
