Costumes from Wicked, Hamilton, and West Side Story have just days left on display in Chicago, as the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry prepares to close its retrospective on designer Paul Tazewell after Monday, September 7. The free-with-admission exhibit has drawn theater and film fans since opening in January, giving visitors an up-close look at garments worn by some of the biggest names on Broadway and in Hollywood.
The exhibition, formally titled Crafting Character: The Costumes of Paul Tazewell, has been in place since January 2026, according to CBS Chicago. The station reports the exhibit features costumes from movies and Broadway musicals, including Elphaba's emerald city dress and Glinda's pink bubble dress from Wicked, Anita's yellow dress from Steven Spielberg's 2021 West Side Story, and the Schuyler sisters' winter ball gowns from Hamilton. Also on view are Hamilton, Jefferson, and Burr's suits and King George III's outfit from Hamilton, alongside Janelle Monae's Met Gala looks.
Tazewell created the costumes for Wicked and for Spielberg's West Side Story, in addition to designing the iconic Hamilton costumes, per the same account. He is described as an award-winning fashion and costume designer whose work spans three decades, according to the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, which called the show the first comprehensive retrospective dedicated to his career. The museum organized the exhibit inside Griffin Studio, its immersive digital space, across five thematic galleries titled Fashion vs. Costume, Inspirations, Movement and Performance, Collaboration, and The Pinnacle — Wicked, according to the museum and a video posted to Facebook.
A Career That Started With a Homemade Marionette
Among the personal artifacts on display is a marionette inspired by Little Red Riding Hood that Tazewell built at age four, a piece that highlights how early hand-crafted projects guided by his mother shaped his career in narrative design, according to Theatre in Chicago. That childhood project sits alongside the polished stagecraft of his later decades, offering visitors a rare look at the throughline between a kid's toy and an Oscar-winning career.
Tazewell's professional accolades stretch back years before his recent wins. He took home a Tony Award in 2016 for his costume work on Broadway's Hamilton and a Primetime Emmy Award that same year for The Wiz Live!, according to his official website. Those earlier honors set the stage for what became a historic 2025 for the designer.
An Oscar, a Tony, and a Retrospective's Perfect Timing
At the 97th Academy Awards in March 2025, Tazewell made history by winning the Oscar for Best Costume Design for Wicked, becoming the first Black man to win in that category, as reported by AP News. Three months later, at the 78th Tony Awards in June 2025, he won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Death Becomes Her, making him only the second costume designer in history to win both an Oscar and a Tony in the same calendar year, per the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Those back-to-back wins landed just before the Chicago exhibit opened, giving the eight-month run added weight as a showcase of a designer at the peak of his industry standing.
Why a Science Museum Is Hosting a Broadway Costume Show
The pairing of a science museum with a theatrical costume retrospective might seem unusual, but museum leadership has explicitly framed the exhibit around craftsmanship rather than fashion alone. Griffin MSI Head Curator Dr. Voula Saridakis said in January that the museum pitched and hosted the exhibition because Tazewell's design process exemplifies STEAM disciplines — science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics — and industrial craftsmanship, according to Chicago Stage and Screen. The framing fits the venue's history: originally built as the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the museum is the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere and has hosted more than 200 million visitors since 1933.
The museum itself became the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry on May 19, 2024, following a $125 million gift from hedge fund founder Ken Griffin that helped create digital spaces like Griffin Studio, the venue where the Tazewell exhibit is housed. Griffin Studio has since hosted other high-profile programming, including an Anne Frank Secret Annex replica that took shape at the museum earlier this year.
Visitors hoping to catch the exhibit before it closes can do so at no extra cost, since admission to Crafting Character is free with regular museum entry. The show also included a line of commemorative clothing and accessories made with a custom pattern Tazewell designed exclusively for the museum's gift store and online shop, a detail highlighted in a video from Choose Chicago. After Monday, the costumes worn by Elphaba, Glinda, Anita, and the Schuyler sisters will pack up and leave the Museum Campus for good.
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