Emmy and Tony Award winner Paul Tazewell to receive Golden Key costume design award from Key West Film Festival (Exclusive)

The 2021 Key West Film Festival runs November 17-21

The Key West Film Festival announced today the recipient of its sixth annual Golden Key for Excellence in Costume Design, honoring Emmy and Tony Award-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell. 

Tazewell’s most recent work includes 2020’s Hamilton, which won him a Costume Designers Guild award, 2018’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, for which he received and Emmy nomination, and 2018’s Harriet. His designs will next be seen in the upcoming Steven Spielberg adaptation of West Side Story, out in theaters this December.

As part of the honor, Tazewell will also participate in a discussion of his work, to be moderated by Dr. Deborah Nadoolman Landis. A former Costume Design Governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and an Academy Award-nominee, Dr. Landis presented the first annual Golden Key for costume design in 2016 to Mary Zophres, who went on to receive an Oscar nomination for her work in La La Land, and to the last four year’s honorees: Mark Bridges, who won the 2018 Oscar for Best Costume Design for The Phantom Thread; and Alexandra Byrne, who’s work in Mary Queen of Scots was recognized by an Academy Award nomination; Arianne Phillips, Oscar-nominated for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; and Francine Jamison-Tanchuck for her artistry in Regina King’s One Night in Miami.

“We are beyond thrilled to shine a spotlight on Paul’s fabulous work in the upcoming West Side Story. Now in our 6th year of being the only festival in the country to annually recognize the art and craft of Costume Design, we’ve broken new ground once again with Paul, whose creations have not only brought to life the characters in major Hollywood films like Harriet and Hamilton, but is someone whose work can be treasured at the highest levels of film, television, theater and opera. He’s a triple threat plus one, and we can’t wait to be further enthralled during his conversation with Deborah Landis, who has supported this award since Day One,” said Michael Tuckman, Director of Programming of the Key West Film Festival.

Paul Tazewell has been designing costumes for Broadway, Regional Theater, Film and Television, Dance, and Opera Productions for close to thirty years. Born in Akron, Ohio, Tazewell graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Tazewell was a resident artist and associate professor of costume design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2006. He began his Broadway career with the groundbreaking musical, ‘Bring in Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, directed by George C. Wolfe. Paul is best known for his work with both of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning Original Broadway productions of Hamilton, for which he received the Tony Award and In the Heights, both directed by Thomas Kail. Other Broadway credits include Ain’t Too Proud; The Color Purple; Memphis; Caroline, or Change; and Elaine Stritch at Liberty.

Tazewell’s feature film credits include; Harriet directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Cynthia Erivo, Hamilton directed by Thomas Kail and the highly anticipated new adaptation of West Side Story, directed by Steven Spielberg. TV credits include the HBO Original Film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, starring Oprah Winfrey and Lackawanna Blues, both directed by George C. Wolfe. Paul also designed costumes for The Wiz! Live, for which he received an Emmy Award. 

In the United States and across the globe, Tazewell has designed for such renowned companies as The Metropolitan Opera, The Bolshoi Ballet, The English National Opera, Theatre du Chatelet, The Public Theater, National Theatre UK, The Kennedy Center, The Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, The Chicago Lyric Opera and many more.

Honoring creativity, diversity, sustainability and beauty, the Key West Film Festival is an annual celebration of film and filmmakers with a diverse, entertaining and artistically rigorous selection of films represented through a broad array of categories that offer opportunities for filmmakers, both aspiring and established, to commune and exchange ideas while showing their work to audiences in an historic and artistically vibrant tropical paradise.