Booser’s jazz age costumes for Jobsite’s superb Twelfth Night were witty and attractive and just what this sharp take on Shakespeare required. The premise of Jobsite’s production was that Duke Orsino, Countess Olivia, Malvolio and Sir Toby Belch were inhabitants of 1920s Ybor City, a magical place of gender confusion and misguided love. Booser’s task was to give us an Ybor that F. Scott Fitzgerald would have recognized; he did this with clothing that even more than Brian Smallheer’s excellent set transferred the Bard’s Illyria to a familiar Tampa location in its mythical heyday. Booser’s costuming was at its best when poor Malvolio, played by the gifted Giles Davies, was tricked into thinking that Olivia wanted him to dress ridiculously as proof of his love. But in fact all of Booser’s creations were colorful, jaunty, and easy to admire.
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2015.