Costume designer Garcia elevated theater scene
AJ Garcia made orphans sparkle, witches dazzle — and actors smile at the mention of his name.
A critically acclaimed costume designer, Garcia worked in high-school, college, community and professional theaters across Central Florida — and last year saw one of his costumes put on display at Walt Disney World. He died Sunday at age 47.
“There’s going to be a huge hole in the Orlando theater community,” said Steve MacKinnon, artistic director of Theater at St. Luke’s in south Orlando. “It’s crazy the impact he had on this region.”
Hailing from the Philadelphia suburb of Williamstown, New Jersey, Anthony John Garcia studied theater and speech at Camden County College in New Jersey. After coming to Central Florida, he acted some but became better known for his skill with needle and thread.
Garcia ran the costume shop for Stetson University in DeLand, and worked with schools such as Dr. Phillips High, which on Friday will stream “The Ladies’ Man,”
a farce that Garcia recently costumed.
He was good with youngsters, said James Brendlinger, owner of Penguin Point Productions in Oviedo, home to one of the region’s largest costume shops.
“He wouldn’t just drop off a rack of costumes, he was educating and mentoring,” Brendlinger said. “There’s a whole generation of students who, for costuming, he was it.”
In his community-theater work, Garcia helped get the Theater at St. Luke’s program off the ground, costuming large-scale musicals with up to 100 cast members.
“He had the spirit and willingness to not only design costumes but to wrangle volunteers,” MacKinnon said. “He would help young people learn how to sew and stitch and organize and coordinate.”
And he didn’t back down from a challenge.
“He’d say no more than 60 costumes” for a show, said MacKinnon, “then I’d give him 76. He really was a miracle worker.”
Garcia also worked in the Orlando Repertory Theatre costume shop, with Theatre Downtown in Orlando, and for the Athens Theatre in DeLand, where he was scheduled to return to the stage in the musical “Mamma Mia,” opening this Friday. A tribute on the theater’s Facebook page said, “Our lights will forever shine less brightly” and the show would be dedicated to Garcia.
“The Garden would have never grown the way it did without A.J.’s contributions,” said former Garden Theatre artistic director Rob Winn Anderson, calling him “a consummate professional.”
For his vibrant costumes for the Garden’s “Into the Woods,” Garcia was named the Orlando Sentinel’s top costumer of 2017. A Quasimodo costume designed for the Winter Garden theater’s 2018 production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” last year was chosen by Walt Disney World to be part of a display at Epcot’s France pavilion.
“His eye for detail was outstanding,” said Roy Alan, artistic director of Winter Park Playhouse, where many of Garcia’s costumes were period-specific from the turn of the century to the Roaring ‘20s into the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. “Everything was accurate, from the right buttons down to the right stitch. He loved sinking his teeth into that stuff.”
Garcia impressed Alan early on by showing up to a planning meeting with pages of full-color drawings of his proposed designs.
“He was an artist,” Alan said. “I felt like I was back in New York. He did things the way they did.”
Garcia met his fiancé, C.J. Sikorski, in 2003, while they were doing summer stock at the Surflight Theatre on the Jersey shore. After coming to Central Florida, the two established East Coast Theatricals in 2016. Garcia still made time to help up-and-comers.
“AJ is the reason I’ve had so many opportunities to develop my wig work here in Orlando,” wrote Justin Lore, who started his business Tease & Floof last year. “His trust in me was something that I truly leaned on.”
He was also generous and kind in his personal life, friends said.
Quinn Roberts recalled how Garcia and Sikorski invited him over for Christmas Eve when he was going through a rough patch. Garcia also introduced Roberts to Derek Critzer — now his partner and co-founder of Theater West End in Sanford.
And performers loved to wear his costumes.
“You knew if it was an AJ Garcia show you were going to feel stunning,” said Olivia DeMarco.
“He created costumes that made you feel like a million dollars, but more importantly made you feel like you were the spark they needed,” wrote Meghan Moroney on Facebook. “Curvy, tall, broad shouldered, short waisted, didn’t matter … you were swaddled in both his talent and his esteem.”
Friends also recalled the self-described neat freak’s personal fair, sense of fun and playful sass.
“If [the late costume designer] Marcy Singhaus was Orlando’s Auntie Mame, AJ was Uncle Max from ‘The Sound of Music,’ ” said MacKinnon.
The circumstances of Garcia’s death remained unclear late Monday. He apparently fell ill while driving, friends said, and was taken by ambulance to Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford. His sister, Melanie Lawless, confirmed his death on social media, stating “our hearts are shattered and we are devastated.”
With Lawless and Sikorski, he is survived by his parents, Eliezer and Awilda of New Jersey, aunts, uncles and Lawless’s children, Bruce, Cailyn, Breanne, Alex and Gianna — whom Garcia “looked at like they were his own,” Sikorski said.
Theater at St. Luke’s is planning a service for Friday evening, which will be streamed for home viewing. Details will be announced at facebook.com/TheaterAtStLukes.
Even though he was smaller, the winner of the arm wrestling match — HAD THE UPPER HAND