Elaine Yokoyama Roos

Design artist and Theater Arts professor Elaine Yokoyama Roos, born September 27, 1945, died on August 4, 2022. She taught costume design in Theater Arts from the late 1970s through the early 2000s and was a crucial design collaborator in the beginning of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the theater company developed at UC Santa Cruz under the artistic direction of Professor Audrey Stanley. She designed as well for Empire State Theatre for Youth, El Teatro Campesino (Bandido by Luis Valdez, 1982), and often worked with Santa Cruz’s noted choreographer Tandy Beal.

Both Yokoyama Roos and her husband set designer Norvid Roos came from New York University where they had previously designed productions for UCSC dance program founder Ruth Solomon. Yokoyama Roos was hired to teach costume design in the then Theater Arts Board of Study. The pair, who continually collaborated as designers in the Bay area and beyond, soon married.

Yokoyama Roos’ 1982 contemporary Nutcracker for Tandy Beal had metallic baseball-jacketed mice teaming up to threaten a modern dressed Clara. Yokoyama Roos also worked to visualize the innovative style UCSC’s Shakespeare Santa Cruz forged. For example, for director/Professor Michael Edward’s 1985 Hamlet she adapted the contemporary high-fashion look of Dynasty, a then popular TV series: her design gave the impression of a rich 1980s family whose well-stocked closets were also packed with skeletons. Yokoyama Roos championed initiatives to make the Theater Arts curriculum more diverse, co-teaching a Hewlett Foundation-funded seminar on multicultural American theater with her focus on Asian America.

Yokoyama Roos helped mold designers that went on to both professional and educational theater. Bowling Green State University Professor Bradford Clark who studied with her in the 1970s remembers: “She was probably the most brilliant person I have ever met - imaginative, extraordinarily well-read, curious about everything.” Designer Deb Barker (class of 1979) noted: “Elaine was my boss, my costume professor, my design thesis advisor, my professional mentor, my advocate and my chosen family.” Designer and arts consultant Diane Neri Stern (class of 1980) observed: “She served as wonderful mentor and helped to make me market ready. A ‘market’ that included, at first, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, the UCSC costume studio, Tandy Beal and Co. and others.” Yokoyama Roos also helped train Constanza Romero Wilson (class of 1985) who designed many works on Broadway and beyond for her husband, important African American playwright August Wilson. Designer Coleen Scott Trivett (class of 2000) who now teaches at Santa Rosa Community College after a long design career in New York remembers Yokoyama Roos’ mask and makeup class and found: “As a young first-generation college student in Santa Cruz, California the idea of New York City was a distant and unknown place” but Elaine “helped me imagine it might be a possibility for me.” Yokoyama Roos as a professor at UCSC helped open minds, hearts, and doors to art making and the world for her collaborators and students.