Costume designer Qween Jean becomes first out trans person to win a Tony Award
Qween Jean was nominated for her costume design work in two separate shows. (Getty)
Costume designer Qween Jean made history this week when she became the first out transgender person to win a Tony Award.
The win came after Jean’s first season on Broadway, which saw her design costumes for ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’ and ‘Liberation’. She was nominated for Tony Awards for both projects, in the ‘Best Costume Design of a Musical’ and ‘Best Costume Design of a Play’ categories, respectively.
Jean took home the win for ‘Cats: Jellicle Ball’, a queer ballroom-style reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical.
The designer created around 500 costumes for the show, some of which included tributes to trans revolutionaries like Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.
At the Tony Awards ceremony on 7 June, Jean said that her experience working on the show has been “monumental”.
“We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people. We are taking up space in waves. We have to take up space, we have to shift the paradigm,” she said in her acceptance speech.
“I want to say thank you all so much for this incredible honour. The world right now is deeply, deeply combatting so many ailments, and we know that as a society when we come together we can make real, permanent change. Thank you so much for this honour.”
“We are representatives of this legacy”
In a 7 June interview with Vulture, Jean shared that she had a “great understanding” of ballroom history when she joined the musical, saying she spent a lot of time at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the New York Picture Collection.
“I’ve always craved knowing where we have been in the past as a young Black queer person knowing about Marsha P. Johnson, Pepper LaBeija, and Ava Pendavis, and learning about the realities and the conditions of these artists,” she said.
“This musical has allowed us to not only pay homage but to give deep gratitude. We are representatives of this legacy, and I’m deeply honored.”
She went on to say that she wants to “express the beauty and innovation” of her community through her work.
“My community has saved me,” Jean explained. “They saw me before I saw myself. I transitioned here in front of all these people. I want my artists and my collaborators, when they put something on, to feel real. They look good. They feel good.”
