By Kate Hill
Staff Writer
When the 71st Prime Time Emmy Awards are held Sept. 22, Melissa Toth, a 1986 graduate of Cazenovia High School, will be among the names called out as presenters go through the nominations.
Toth has been nominated for an Emmy for her costume work on “Fosse/Verdon” — a biographical miniseries about the partnership between director-choreographer Bob Fosse and Broadway dancer Gwen Verdon.
“Fosse/Verdon” premiered April 9, 2019 on FX.
Starring Sam Rockwell as Fosse and Michelle Williams as Verdon, the series tells the story of the couple’s turbulent personal and professional relationship.
The show received seven nominations for the Emmy Awards — which honors the best in U.S. prime time television from June 1, 2018 to May 31, 2019, as selected by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
“Fosse/Verdon” is one of five shows up for the “Outstanding Period Costumes” award.
The nomination recognizes Toth and her design team for their work on the episode titled “Life is a Cabaret.”
“My husband Sandy and I are so proud of all she’s accomplished,” said Toth’s mother, Maria Babcock. “This is kind of the cherry on top. There is nothing more amazing than watching a movie or television show and seeing your own child’s name in the credits.”
Toth moved to Cazenovia in 1982 to live with her mother and stepfather, Severance Babcock.
In high school, Toth became involved in choral groups and musical theater.
“I had a group of very talented friends and teachers and I fell in love with theater, mostly in a performance capacity,” she said.
In 1986, she left Cazenovia to attended Tufts University, where she majored in drama.
In addition to performing, the drama program required Toth to work in set, lighting and costume design.
Her costumes for a production of “Trouble in Tahiti,” in particular, captured the attention of her professors, who suggested she pursue costume design as a career.
According to Toth, her attraction to costume design is rooted in her interest in storytelling.
“I am helping actors and directors tell stories through costume,” she said. “I really love the process of working with actors to flesh out a character, giving the audience a richer sense of who the characters are, and in a sense adding silent details to the script, details that improve the writing in a way.”
Following graduation, Toth served as the costume designer for the Actors Shakespeare Company — a free, rotating repertory Shakespeare company in Albany.
Eventually, she made her way to New York City, where she transitioned to designing costumes for films.
Her first film, “Welcome to the Dollhouse” (1995) won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Her credits also include “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004), “Adventureland” (2009), “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “Manchester by the Sea” (2016).
Toth became connected to “Fosse/Verdon” through her friend and colleague Erica Kay, a producer on the show.
According to Toth, Kay suspected that she would be a good match for the creator and showrunner, Thomas Kail.
“Tommy and I met and hit it off, and I started on the job right away,” Toth recalled. “Of course the scripts were great, and Tommy Kail is just such a magnetic person, and really genuinely kind, which can be hard to find in this business.”
One of the most attractive aspects of the project, according to Toth, was the prospect of working with its two lead actors.
“I had worked with both Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams before, and I love working with both of them,” she said. “Sam and Michelle are two of my very favorite actors. They are both so talented, and they are such collaborators and so respectful of everyone’s work, so they just made it so joyful for me. We all knew we were in for the long haul, and we helped each other through that aspect of it.”
Toth was also drawn to the technical challenge presented by the show, which spans 60 years and required exact recreations of iconic costumes from Fosse and Verdon shows and movies.
“It isn’t often that the stars align and this kind of project comes along,” she said.
According to Toth, creating character versions of real-life people requires considerable research.
To recreate the costumes from “Sweet Charity” and “Cabaret,” for example, the design team scrutinized sequences from the films over and over, freezing the frames to examine minute costume details.
They also gathered on-set photographs from both films.
Additionally, the team examined family photographs from the Verdon Fosse Legacy, including a large collection from Verdon and Fosse’s daughter, Nicole, an executive producer on the show.
Some of the iconic clothing items featured in the show are actually originals, on loan from the Verdon Fosse Legacy.
“We want to get details right, but not fall into a place where we are doing impersonations,” Toth said. “The actors have to bring their own sensibility to the performance, and at the end of the day that’s what the audience is interested in seeing.”
When she began the project, Toth was struck by the difference in the pace of working in television versus film.
“In film you have a little more time to think about what you are doing and prepare a little more in advance,” she said. “In television there are many times when you are having a fitting 20 minutes before the scene shoots. At first I found it just untenable, I couldn’t believe how fast we had to do everything. [Then] I just got used to it. By the third or fourth episode, I didn’t think anything of saying ‘hey, I want to build Michelle a dress for the big scene the day after tomorrow.’”
The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony will be held on Sept. 22.
