Franne Newman Lee, a born artist, was a member of Division Avenue High School's class of 1960 where she was a varsity cheerleader. In 1967, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Design from the University of Wisconsin.
She began her professional career in New York theatre with Andre Gregory's "Alice in Wonderland" for which she received an Obie Award for costumes. Her many Broadway credits also include Hal Prince's productions of "Candide" and "Sweeney Todd". Franne received Tony Awards for costume design for both productions.
Her film credits include John Sayles' "Baby It's You", Paul Simon's "One Trick Pony", David Lynch's "Industrial Symphony #1" and Al Pacino's "Chinese Coffee".
Franne's TV credits include the first five years of Saturday Night Live, for which she won an Emmy. Among the costumes she created for SNL were the famous Coneheads attire. More TV work followed when Franne moved to Los Angeles in 1995 where she designed "Sherman Oakes" for Showtime and "Roseanne" for King World.
In 1999 Franne moved to Nashville and designed "On Music Row" a TV Movie of the Week. This led to designing local music videos, commercials and theatre. On Nov. 10, 2001, Franne opened the Plowhaus, an artists' cooperative in East Nashville , bringing her full circle back to her artist roots Plowhaus has been opened now for five years and has grown from a small storefront to a full scale gallery space. She also teaches Costume Design at Belmont University's theatre department where she can keep in touch with her designing roots.
1 comment:
There are so many talented and accomplished members of the Class of 1960 that I wish I had known better in school, such as Franne. But glad to know about their triumphs now.
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