Arthur Oliver
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arthur Oliver is an American costume designer. Oliver has been designing costumes professionally since 1991. Opera, Theatre, Film, Television and Academia have employed his talent at such notable institutions as The Atlanta Opera, The Connecticut Opera, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Charles Playhouse, The Colonial Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Mixed Company, The Stratford Shakespearean Festival (Ontario), The Yard, NYU/Tisch, LSU, Swine Palace, Trinity College, Gordon College, Simon's Rock College of Bard and The Boston Conservatory.
In 1995 he designed a series of short films for The Tropicana Film Festival (Sydney, Australia). The 1997 worldwide broadcast of "Evening at Pops/Brush Up Your Shakespeare" (PBS/The Boston Pops) marked his debut in the television industry and was followed some years later with the 2004 ESPN live broadcast of a 1900's period baseball game.
In the past 20 years Mr. Oliver has worked with popular entertainers such as Raquel Welch, Liza Minnelli, Alicia Silverstone, Keanau Reeves, Maureen Stapleton, Marge Champion, Harvey Fierstein, David Hyde-Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, Carly Simon and Olympia Dukakis. In 2001 he designed the costumes for a fully staged "Romeo and Juliet", with the accompaniment of The Virginia Symphony and The Buffalo Philharmonic, under the baton of Maestra JoAnn Faletta. A chapter on his personal views of designing for Shakespeare was published in "Shakespeare Festivals Around the World" (Xlibris Corporation) in 2004.
In 2005 he collaborated with Grammy Award recipient Carly Simon and Artistic Director Wendy Taucher (The Yard) on "Created by Carly Simon: Dances at the Yard" with new compositions by Ms. Simon. His Broadway debut was June of 2007 "Broadway Bares XVII-Myth Behavior" produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Tony award winner Jerry Mitchell and Director Denis Jones. The event raised an unprecedented $743,787.00 for the support of men, women and children living with HIV and AIDS.
Through the years his work has been mentioned in some of the most important and influential press in America (The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Herald, The Wall Street Journal and Variety Magazine) and he has been profiled in national magazines STAGEDOOR and Berkshire Living. Currently he is "Professional-in-Residence" for Louisiana State University and was Resident Costume Designer for Shakespeare & Company (2005-2007).
