The popular musical “Some Like It Hot” from two Tony-winning former San Diegans will be in their hometown for a week-long engagement en Broadway San Diego.

“It’s amazing on many levels, but the thing I’m most, most excited for is that my family can go and see it,” said Gregg Barnes, who won a Tony for his costume design of the musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago and San Diego.

His mother, siblings, nieces and nephews did not make it to New York to see the musical or the 76th Tony Awards where “Some Like It Hot” led the field in the number of nominations. The musical based on the 1959 film starring Marilyn Monroe took home four Tony Awards, including Best Choreography by Casey Nicholaw, a former San Diegan who developed his love of Broadway over many years at San Diego Junior Theatre (SDJT).

Nicholaw is directing the national tour of the show before it opens in London’s West End. Barnes’ costume designs are also being utilized by the national tour.

Unlike Nicholaw, Barnes only spent one summer at SDJT. Instead, his desire to pursue theater came from a school field trip to the Old Globe where his Monte Vista High School classmates watched “As You Like It” from director Jack O’Brien.

“It just changed my life. It just gave me a window into a whole world that I somehow wanted to be a part of,” Barnes said. Like many people, he loved the stories he saw on stage but was unsure how to be a part of the community behind it. His summer at SDJT at least taught him it would not be as an actor. “But it’s not always easy to find your your path, to find out how you might fit into that world.”

Barnes was told he had talent as a costume designer

A guest lecturer at San Diego State University told Barnes he had talent as a costume designer and he should move to New York City. After working in the costume department at Grossmont College, he did just that, working for 20 years at New York University (NYU) while designing costumes in his off hours. It was actually his San Diego connections which gave him his big break in New York.

A friend who was writing a musical parody commissioned by Teatro de repertorio de San Diego called him to tell him they were putting on an original show. They did not have enough money to pay a costume designer, but had scraped enough together for a plane ticket. Barnes flew to San Diego to design the costumes for “Suds: The Rockin’ 60s Musical Soap Opera” which was extended at The Rep multiple times before moving to the Old Globe then to Off Broadway in 1988, where it was his first time on a playbill for the prestigious Broadway-adjacent theater district. A decade of work later and Barnes was on Broadway with “Side Show.” Within five years, he won his first Tony.

Barnes has maintained a busy schedule since, able to quit his teaching career and work full time on Broadway. “Some Like It Hot” was actually a unique experience, its creation falling as it did when Broadway was shut down during the pandemic. For two years, he focused on it solely, instead of working multiple projects at once.

The 1959 movie, which follows two musicians fleeing the mob by disguising themselves as women to join an all-female band headed to San Diego, is set in the glitz of the 1920s. “We knew that we didn’t want to not respect that history, but we also wanted to make it somehow speak to our today,” Barnes said.

The musical adaptation added new underpinnings.

The timeline was moved to 1933, after The Great Depression had started and converted Monroe’s role as Sugar Kane to one for a Black actress. Jack Lemmon’s role as Jerry/Daphne was transformed to include a new journey of self-discovery as gender queer.

Love for many different costume designs

Barnes loved the many different costumes he got to design, from posh guests at the Hotel del Coronado and the bands’ costumes, to speakeasy attire and Chicago mobsters’ outfits. The end of the Broadway show and beginning of the national tour was a chance to reexamine the costumes. “Being on the road has its own difficult requirements, because you’re moving all the time,” he said.

Barnes explained for the eight shows a week and dancing to boot, Broadway is hard on costumes. In New York, they can hire someone who spends 16 hours a week mending costumes. An additional 15 people clean and press and keep the costumes maintained. On the road, they may only pass by a qualified expert once per month to do all the repairs. Costumes for the national tour must be easier to clean and more hardy while still appearing delicate. “You want it to look like a butterfly wing, but it has to be made like a ship,” Barnes said.

To view his Tony-winning costumes and Nicholaw’s direction and Tony-winning choreography, the national tour will be at the Civic Center from Jan. 28 – Feb. 2. Entradas en broadwaysd.com.

Top caption: Edward Juvier as Osgood dancing with the First National Touring Company of “Some Like It Hot” to Tony-winning choreography by San Diego Junior Theatre alum Casey Nicholas. (Photo by Matthew Murphy)