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Tuesday, March 26, 2002

By LaMont Jones, Post-Gazette Fashion Editor

The day "Saturday Night Fever" opened in December 1977, Suzy Benzinger watched it in a Manhattan movie theater.

	The costumes for the stage musical "Saturday Night Fever," including those worn by Tony, played by Richard H. Blake have to withstand the show's choreography. "Everything had to be sturdy but danceable. It had to be real clothing, not dance clothing," says the show's costume designer Suzy Benzinger.

Five times, without leaving her seat.

"I was quite the fanatic of the film," she said.

Now, nearly 25 years later, costumes designed by Benzinger are being worn in a musical inspired by the disco flick that put John Travolta on the map. Eight performances, presented by the Mellon Pittsburgh Broadway Series, run today through Sunday at Heinz Hall.

The stage version, first presented at the famed Palladium in London's West End in 1998, was followed by a critically acclaimed Broadway engagement at New York City's Minskoff Theater from September 1999 through December 2000.

Now the production, adapted for stage by Nan Knighton and directed and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, is touring the United States with a cast of 33 Broadway singers and dancers, including resident choreographer Marcia Urani, 30, from Republic, Fayette County, a 1993 graduate of Point Park College.

Benzinger designed about 500 outfits for "Saturday Night Fever -- The Musical," including duplicates, which is routine for theater. (There were four of every shirt for the guys, for example.) She also designed shoes and made choices about wigs, undergarments and hosiery.

Typically, costume designers have a couple of months to come up with a wardrobe for a Broadway production. But Benzinger had only six weeks, during which she and three assistants regularly worked 15-hour days.

	For information and tickets, call 412-392-4900 or visit http://www.pgharts.org/.

"I became involved when the London production decided to come to New York," she said. "They decided they needed a more authentic look because the New York audiences were very well aware of the film."

The high-energy nature of the show presented new design challenges for Benzinger. Clothes "had to be incredibly danceable," she said.

"The girls had to be able to be flipped all over the place and the dresses not come apart and shift. And all the body parts had to be covered. Everything had to be sturdy but danceable. It had to be real clothing, not dance clothing."

Benzinger didn't need to see the movie again to refresh her memory about the fashions; they were etched in her mind.

"I was so obsessed with that show, I cannot even tell you,'" she said. "So designing the clothes wasn't a hard stretch for me."

	The costumes for the stage musical "Saturday Night Fever," including those worn by Annette, played by Aileen Quinn, have to withstand the show's choreography. "Everything had to be sturdy but danceable. It had to be real clothing, not dance clothing," says the show's costume designer Suzy Benzinger.

Benzinger, 45, has 25 years' experience in costume design. The Orchard Park, N.Y., native enrolled at Duquesne University as a journalism student in the '70s but switched fields after falling in love with theater in Pittsburgh.

"I sort of became obsessed with the whole theater thing. I wound up doing theater all the time."

At her parents' urging, she transferred to the State University of New York at Stony Brook to study theater and costume design. She never graduated but went on to a successful career in costume design in Broadway productions such as "Miss Saigon" and "Ain't Broadway Grand" and several motion pictures, including "Deconstructing Harry" and "Don't Drink the Water."

Benzinger also has created stage outfits for Elton John, Whitney Houston and Gloria Estefan, and in 1999 she won the Theatre Development Fund's Irene Sharaff Award for Outstanding Young Master Costume Design.

Now she's designing for Tony Curtis' tour of "Some Like It Hot," working on a project with Billy Joel and Twyla Tharp and enjoying time at home in TriBeCa.

Designing the costumes for "Saturday Night Fever" was "a great experience," she said.

"It really, really was a lot of fun. I hope the audiences appreciate it and get into it."