Photo credit: Ron Kain
HAYDEE \ eye • deh \ is a New York City-based costume designer and storyteller whose work explores identity, image, and narrative through clothing. Her designs are known for their emotional clarity, cultural specificity, and visual imagination across theater, opera, and film.
Her early instincts to shape story through image has evolved into a nationally recognized design career. She believes costume is a powerful language—how we dress tells stories about who we are, who we are not, and who we hope to become. Her work examines how clothing and appearance shape the way we are seen and understood in terms of race, class, gender, and culture.
A Chicana and Latina artist who grew up on both sides of the US–Mexico border, Haydee brings deep narrative insight to every project. She has designed for Boston Lyric Opera (Carousel, Das Lied von der Erde upcoming), The Old Globe (Huzzah! upcoming ), Berkeley Repertory Theatre (The Aves, POTUS), Playwrights Horizons, The Public, MCC Theater, The Alley Theatre, Signature Theatre, INTAR, and American Players Theatre, among many others.
She has collaborated with celebrated directors including Anne Bogart, Annie Tippe, Chay Yew, Dustin Wills, Aaron Posner, Josiah Davis, Tiffany Nichole Greene, Tatyana-Marie Carlo, Sheryl Kaller, Estefanía Fadul, Jaki Bradley, and Laurie Woolery, among many others. She has also worked with acclaimed playwrights on new works, such as John J. Caswell, Jr. (Wet Brain), Caridad Svich (Eva Luna), Camilo Almonacid (Hotel Happy), Three Houses (David Malloy), Luis Alfaro (Mojada) and Jiehae Park (The Aves).
Haydee is a 2024 Obie Award winner and received the 2022 Artistas de Teatro Independiente Award for Best Costume Design for Eva Luna. She was a finalist for the Opera America Design Fellowship and has taught as a Lecturer at Boston University. She holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama.
Her creative process is both structured and intuitive—reading, researching, sketching, and ongoing dialogue form the core of how she builds a visual world. She is currently expanding into producing to develop more equitable systems for storytelling in stage, film and TV. She is also the co-creator and co-host of Just Words Nobody Cares, a conversational podcast that explores the intersections of identity, culture, and creative labor. Through candid interviews with artists, musicians, film festival directors, comedians, and everyday visionaries, the show makes space for voices that often go unheard—and reflects the values that drive her work on and off the stage.
Whether designing worlds, supporting narratives, or curating conversations, Haydee’s goal is to create work that resonates deeply, connects authentically, and stays with the audience long after the lights fade.
She is based in NYC.
Representation
Noah Ezell
Michael Moore Agency
315 West 39th Street, Suite 607
New York, NY 10018
Contact
haydee.zelideth@gmail.com
@haydeezelideth