SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - When the curtain rises on "Some Like it Hot" at Broadway San Diego, the audience will be seeing a "love letter" to the city.
"It's such a blessing," says Gregg Barnes, the show's costume designer. "It's a crazy coincidence that this came into my life."
Barnes grew up in San Diego. So did the show's Director and Choreographer, Casey Nicholaw. Both won Tony Awards, Broadway's highest honor, for their work on the show.
The play follows two Chicago mobsters who have to hide out from the Chicago mafia by dressing as women in 1930s California. It's based on the 1959 movie of the same name, which is widely regarded as one of the best comedies of all time.
That movie was filmed at the Hotel Del in Coronado. In the film, the Del serves as a stand-in for a Florida resort.
The creative team decided to move the setting to the actual Hotel Del. Barnes says that allowed for more authentic, multi-racial characters who would have been accepted in the 1930s in California but not in Florida.
"It's not just dudes in a dress. It's got a little bit more nuance to it," he says. "Part of our story tries to kind of have one foot in the political culture of today without it being about that. It's about joy and heart and finding how you fit into the world. And hopefully, it's funny."
The change also helped broaden the scope of the show. In the play, the characters take a side trip to Tijuana. The show also plays off the stark contrast of a bleak, depression-era Chicago setting and the vibrant colors and excitement of California.
"When you finally get to San Diego, which is the mecca of sunshine and beaches and a beautiful place, it feels even better-er than where they come from," Barnes says. "So we start the story from the winter in a poor area of Chicago and end up at the Hotel Del. It's got a wonderful arc to it."
It also allowed Barnes to design costumes for a wide variety of characters and settings.
"You have the mob, you have the bohemians in Chicago, you have what we think of as people on the boardwalk in San Diego. They go to Tijuana," he says. "There's so many different ways of flavors to what my part of the experience was and I hopefully get to bring that to the table."
And as the show makes its San Diego debut, Barnes is thrilled to show off his work to the place that raised him.
"It's a love letter to movies. It's a love letter to musical comedy. But it's also, in many ways, a love letter to San Diego," he says.
"Some Like it Hot" runs at San Diego's Civic Theater through Sunday, Feb. 2. Tickets are available at BroadwaySD.com
