Rita Ryack - Details

Biography

A native of Massachusetts, Ryack has worked extensively in film, theatre and television. On the big screen, her affiliation with director Martin Scorsese encompasses work on Casino and Cape Fear.

Ryack received Tony, Drama Desk and Los Angeles Drama Critics Award nominations for her designs on the hit stage musical, My One and Only, starring Tommy Tune and Twiggy. She also designed costumes for the Broadway staging of The Human Comedy as well as the off-Broadway productions of Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, Hunting Cockroaches, The Vampires, The Foreigner, Anteroom, The Loman Family Picnic and It’s Only A Play, for which she earned an American Theatre Wing nomination. Her talents were recognized with the 1986 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Costume Design. She was principal costume designer at Robert Brustein’s American Repertory Theatre at Harvard.

Ryack is also an award-winning cartoon illustrator and film animator, and in May 2000, was honored by the New York chapter of Women in Film for her creative achievement in costume design. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama (MFA) and Brandeis University, Ryack was awarded a teaching fellowship in Costume Design at Bennington College.