‘The Birds’ costume designer an ‘SNL’ alum

A bucket of murky brown liquid sits on the floor next to Franne Lee.

“It’s dye for aging,” she says briskly as she points to the results of her handiwork: Hanging on a nearby rack, a wedding dress looks a little worse for wear, its ivory fabric stained by the dye.

“It’s kind of my thing,” she says. “Dirty, tattered and poor has always been my thing.”

We’re meeting upstairs at the Garden Theatre, where Lee is designing the costumes for “The Birds,” the psychological thriller that opens Oct. 12 at the Winter Garden venue.

“Her thing” won her Tony Awards for the 1973 Broadway revival of “Candide” (costume and scenic design) and the original 1979 production of “Sweeney Todd” — a show that knows “dirty and tattered.”

Also on her resume: Creating the iconic looks of the Coneheads, the Bees and the Blues Brothers on TV’s “Saturday Night Live,” where she designed costumes for the show’s first five years.

So how did Lee end up in Florida? She had family in South Florida, and like many before her, found the state an appealing retirement destination. Except she discovered she’s not ready for full retirement.

From her home in Lake Worth, she sent letters to nearby theaters — though she wondered if the length her resume would be off-putting. “She’s been in the business 45 years,” she imagined theater directors saying. “Do we really want this little old lady?”

But Lee found work: At the Maltz Jupiter Theatre and Palm Beach Dramaworks — where a director recognized her name from the “Sweeney Todd” poster hanging in his bathroom.

And after all, Lee is only “old” when she wants to be: She picked up that wedding dress for “The Birds” at a thrift shop near her home for just $45. “I’m a senior citizen,” she says, eyes twinkling, “so if I go on Wednesday, things are half price!”

Scavenging for costume pieces hasn’t changed much during her career — though technology has. “We’d carry quarters, lots of them; sometimes, we’d call collect,” she remembers about checking in with her ‘SNL’ team.

“It was fast and furious,” she says of designing the costumes for the show. “The Coneheads were pretty weird. They had no idea how they were going to dress them.”

Getting a new show off the ground added to the challenge.

“They have money today — we didn’t,” she says. “But I think part of the charm of that show at the beginning was we didn’t have money.” The bees’ antennae, for example, were just ping pong balls attached to headbands with wire.

“SNL” was similar to “Candide” in one way — “There was also no money,” she remembers. But working with composer Leonard Bernstein and director Hal Prince was a thrill, and she met Stephen Sondheim.

Later on, she and Prince were