Bringing worlds to life in New York, one stitch at a time

Johanna Pan is a New York-based costume and scenic designer who has worked on many large-scale productions and prolific Broadway shows, even Sweeney Todd with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford.

In secondary school, they created costumes for Odyssey of the Mind, an international problem-solving competition, and learnt to sew and make patterns from their seamstress grandmother.

Despite their early talent in costume design, Johanna studied theatre at A-Levels to be an actor. One of their teachers recognised their strengths and suggested that they were better suited to design than performance.

Though resistant at first, they eventually produced 10 costume sketches for a production their school was working on. They went on to create costumes for their classmates’ projects and built a portfolio from there.

Johanna’s lightbulb moment arrived when they saw an exhibition of Christian Lacroix’s costumes at the National Museum Singapore in 2009. They came across a book on costume designers which introduced them to designers like Theoni V Aldredge.

Inspired to pursue costume design, they received scholarships from Ithaca College in 2009 for a BA in Theatrical Production Arts – Design and later in 2017 from NYU for an MFA in Design for Stage and Film.

On top of their work on Broadway, Johanna also continues to work on Singapore productions. In 2023, their work on Alfian Sa’at’s Pulau Ujong by Wild Rice was nominated for Best Set Design at the Life Theatre Awards.

Johanna tells us how they have worked their way up in New York, by relying on pure grit and leveraging connections.

What was the most difficult thing to cope with when you first moved?

I was 18. I had never been to the US before. There was definitely a culture shock. My roommates were doing drugs, and I was teased for my accent, though not in a nasty way because I can code-switch pretty well.

Ithaca College gave us a briefing about the different stages international students go through, and it’s all true. In the beginning, I tried to stay away from other international students because I was trying very hard to assimilate. I understand why I did that, but I also regret it because I should have held on to what made me me and to people who made me feel at home. Eventually I found my own place and carved my own path. Now that I’m older, I feel more comfortable just being myself.

Tell us about getting started after graduation and the challenges you faced.

I applied for a Juilliard design apprenticeship, which I didn’t get. But one door closes and another opens. Someone there recommended me to another designer who was looking for an intern. It turned out to be for Beautiful: The Carole King Musical on Broadway. The associate designer relied on the interns more than his assistant because we were faster and on top of things. I was very lucky because he liked us a lot. That internship led to almost all of the work I’ve gotten since. 

The thing about New York City is it’s all about word of mouth and connections. It depends on who you know and whether they like you.

The hard part for me was just not giving up. It’s do or die. Get work or starve. In the US, the visa you need is the O-1, which is very difficult to get. To get that visa, you need connections: a wide network of influential industry people to vouch for you. I knew that if I wanted to get that visa and stay, I couldn’t fail. You just have to find a way to succeed and push through. I got the visa a year after graduation. 

Tell us about some cool people and projects.

I really enjoyed working with Clint Ramos and David Zinn, who are both amazing Tony Award-winning set and costume designers. I got to work on the last Stephen Sondheim musical, Here We Are, which also went to the National Theatre in London.

I was also the associate costume designer on Sweeney Todd with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. And I’m currently the associate costume designer for the upcoming Metropolitan Opera production of Tristan und Isolde with Clint Ramos as costume designer and Es Devlin as set designer.

I’ve worked on productions where the scale and budgets are so huge. I get to do all sorts of crazy things for work. The costumes are fabric custom pleated, custom painted, custom beaded—it’s such a different world from Singapore.

Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to move overseas to work in the arts?

Don’t do it unless you’re absolutely in love with it. The life of an arts worker is difficult, and you have to be willing to tough it out. If there’s anything else you think you could be happy doing, you should go do that. If you have the drive for it, then you should definitely go for it. But if you don’t feel like you have the drive, find something else. A lot of people think, “I went to school for this, so now I have to do this.” It’s okay to pivot and change your mind.

What does your grandmother think of what you’re doing now?

She’s very old now. She knows that I still work with clothes. In the past when they learnt how to make clothes, they would create paper patterns and half-scale models. She has this book she’s kept for a very long time with all the patterns she drafted, very neatly folded and pasted in. She thought it would mean something to me, so she gave it to me. I’m very grateful for that. I feel like there’s some creative spirit in our blood somewhere along the line.