Sarasota Designer creates costumes for NBC

Alice Bee constructed 10 nun costumes. She’s never made a nun’s garment before, but seeing as she’s constructed costumes for umpteen Broadway productions, she was up for the holy challenge. Her work can be seen December 5th on NBC during "The Sound of Music."

Bee spends most of her year running her studio, Alice Bee Design, in Towles Court, 200 S. Washington. But for two weeks at a time in the fall and again in the spring, she heads to New York City where she works under the designer Catherine Zuber on Broadway Productions. She has worked on "Gypsy," "The Producers," "Les Miserables," "Curtain," "Rent," "Little Shop of Horrors," and "The Wedding Singer" to name a few.

It was through this designer that she got the gig for creating costumes for NBC’s live-stage production of “The Sound of Music.” The production is a cross between television and live theater and will star Carrie Underwood as Maria, Audra McDonald as Mother Abbess, and Stephen Moyer as Captain Von Trapp. Bee created nearly half of the principal nun costumes.

She also just finished working on the Lincoln Center Revival of “Macbeth” starring Ethan Hawke.

“He’s lovely,” she says. “The first time I met him, I had to sew a hook and eye on his pants — that was an introduction.”

In Sarasota she creates her own designs, does custom pieces and alterations. For future news on Alice Bee, visit YourObserver.com.