PHOTO: Lauren Mueller
‘Costuming a Small Army of Virgins for the Met Opera’s ‘El Niño’
Louis Lucero II, New York Times Feature (April 2024)
‘If a picture is worth a thousand words, a Blanco costume is worth considerably more.’
Drama Desk announcement of the Sam Norkin Award (April 2019)
‘He’s a conceptualist who approaches clothing as adornment, as artifact, as potential signifiers of ambition, anxiety, desire.’
Alexis Soloski, New York Times Feature (February 2019)
BIO
Montana is a costume designer from Albuquerque, New Mexico. His grandmother, a lampshade artisan, inspired an early love of fabric, color, and beauty. Montana is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (BM Oboe Performance), Oberlin College (BA History), Brown University (MA Public Humanities), and the Yale School of Drama (MFA Design). Prior to attending Yale, he was the Robert L. Tobin Curatorial Fellow at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas. In 2022, Montana was awarded the Tony Award for Best Costume Design of a Play for The Skin of our Teeth.
UPCOMING PROJECTS
The Blood Quilt by Katori Hall, director Lileana Blain-Cruz, Lincoln Center Theatre (November 2024)
Rinaldo, opera by George Frideric Handel, libretto by Giacomo Rossi, director Louisa Proske, Detroit Opera (February 2025)
Purple Rain, music by Prince, book by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, director Lileana Blain-Cruz, State Theatre/Prince Estate/Orin Wolf Productions (April 2025)
This House, opera by Ricky Ian Gordon, libretto by Ruby Aiyo Gerber & Lynn Nottage, Opera Theatre St. Louis (June 2025)
Lincoln in the Bardo, opera by Missy Mazzoli, libretto by Royce Vavrek, director Lileana Blain-Cruz, LA Opera & Metropolitan Opera (February 2026)
CREDITS
Broadway: A Strange Loop, The Skin of Our Teeth
Off-Broadway: Fairview, Is God Is, Montag (Soho Rep); Ain’t No Mo’ (Public); A Strange Loop, Selling Kabul (Playwrights Horizons); The House That Will Not Stand, Red Speedo, Nat Turner (NYTW); Fabulation, The Death of the Last Black Man, In the Blood (Signature); Fefu and Her Friends, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (TFANA); Pipeline, Epiphany, Six Characters, Ghost Light, War (Lincoln Center); ’Daddy’, White Girl in Danger, Sandblasted (Vineyard); Dragon Spring, Phoenix Rise (The Shed); Eddie & Dave (Atlantic); Orange Julius (Rattlestick/Page 73); Distances Smaller (Advanced Begginer Group); The Last Match (Roundabout); One Big Bag, River (Whitney Museum of American Art); & O, Earth (The Foundry)
Opera: El Niño (Metropolitan Opera); Champion (Metropolitan Opera & Lyric Opera of Chicago); Rinaldo (Glimmerglass Opera); Trade // Mary Motorhead (LA Opera/Irish National Opera/Prototype), Iphigenia (Kennedy Center), Hansel & Gretel (Houston Grand Opera), La Rondine (Minnesota Opera)
Regional: Angels in America, An Octoroon, Ripple, Or the Wave that Carried Me Home (Berkeley Repertory); The Bluest Eye (Guthrie); Lempicka (Williamstown) ;Graveyard Shift (Goodman); Girls (Yale Repertory); Love, Love, Love (Studio Theatre); Create Dangerously (Miami New Drama); Skylight (McCarter); Measure for Measure (California Shakespeare); Square Dance (Miami City Ballet); Djembe! (Apollo Chicago); Zoyka’s Apartment (Princeton University); Our Country's Good, Side Show (Brown/Trinity Repertory); Madiba (Kennedy Center) & a number of shows at the Yale School of Drama
AWARDS
Tony Award: The Skin of Our Teeth (2022)
Sam Norkin Special Drama Desk Award: Fairview, The House That Will Not Stand, Fabulation, Or the Re-Education of Undine, Eddie and Dave, ‘Daddy,’ & Ain’t No Mo’ (2019)
Henry Hewes Design Award: Ain’t No Mo’ (2019) & Fefu and Her Friends (2020)
Lucille Lortel Award: The House That Will Not Stand (2019)
Obie Award: A Strange Loop (2019) & He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box (2018)
CONTACT
Russ Rosensweig, Summit Entertainment Group
russ@summitentertainmentgroup.com
montana.blanco@gmail.com
Amy Lombard for the New York Times