Elizabeth Whiting

Elizabeth Robyn Whiting is a stage costume designer from New Zealand.

Career

Whiting trained under designer Eve Schlup at Auckland's Theatre Corporate. Her first costume designs were for Limbs Dance Company and she has costumed New Zealand Opera since 1995.
Whiting has designed costumes for Auckland Theatre Company, Silo Theatre, Black Grace, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Pop-Up Theatre London for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and six years of World of Wearable Art. Theatre shows Whiting has worked on include Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and directed by Raymond Hawthorne at the Sky City Theatre, Auckland, My Name is Gary Cooper by Victor Rodger at the Maidment Theatre, Auckland, and Angels in America by Tony Kushner and directed by Shane Bosher at Q Theatre, Auckland.
In 2018 Whiting designed costumes for La bohème, The Cherry Orchard and Shortland Street – The Musical and Here Lies Love.
In 2019 Whiting designed costumes for Delicious Oblivion, Joan and The Daylight Atheist''.
Of costume design Whiting says:

A good costume clarifies the nature of the play and helps tell the story underlining the themes, setting, social status of the characters and particular quirks they may have concerning their clothing.

Awards and recognition

Whiting won the 2010 Chapman Tripp Theatre Award Costume Design Award and represented New Zealand at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in 2003 and 2007. In 2021 Whiting won an inaugural Out of the Limelight Theatre Award, from the Sir Roger Hall Theatre Fund and managed by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.
In the 2026 New Year Honours, Whiting was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to costume design.