Biography[]
Marjorie Slaiman, the longtime costume designer for the Arena Stage theater company in Washington, died on Sept. 13 2--2 at a hospital in Fairfax, Va. She was 77 and lived in Washington. The cause was complications from heart surgery, her family said.
In her 26-year career with Arena Stage Ms. Slaiman designed thousands of costumes for more than 130 productions, including the 1967 premiere of The Great White Hope with James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, which alone required more than 230 costumes.
She also worked on Arena Stage's productions of Our Town and Inherit the Wind, which both toured the Soviet Union in 1973.
Her credits on Broadway include Arthur Kopit's Indians, Studs Terkel's Working and Elie Wiesel's Zalmen, or the Madness of God. Ms. Slaiman won the first Helen Hayes Award for her costume design for Man and Superman in 1985 and was nominated for seven more Hayes awards before her retirement in 1993.