Ragtime Costume Design Tony Nomination Withdrawn from Competition

The Tony Awards committee has withdrawn Ragtime’s Santo Loquasto nomination in the Costume Design of a Musical category, according to The New York Times. Loquasto designed the costumes for the original 1998 run of Ragtime (for which he was also Tony nominated) as well as for his recent work on the revival. It has been deemed that several of the costumes from the original were too similar to the revival. Works with “substantially duplicate” qualities are not eligible.

“We learned this too late to remove the costumes from consideration by the nominators, but feel that we cannot allow the designs to remain in contention,” a statement from the Tony Awards Productions. No replacement will be named in the category which also includes Marina Draghici for Fela!, Paul Tazewell for Memphis and Matthew Wright for La Cage aux Folles.

The now-closed revival of Ragtimeopened on November 15, 2009 at the Neil Simon Theatre. In addition to the initial Costume Design nomination, the show also earned six other nominations, including Best Revival of a Musical.