Clint Ramos won a Tony Award in 2016 for his costume designs for “Eclipsed” and has been nominated many other times. Now he’s perfecting costumes for the March premiere of “Tristan und Isolde” at the Metropolitan Opera. But his flair for elevating theatrical experiences extends beyond dressing casts.
As Lincoln Center’s artist in residence, a three-year position that ends in 2028, he’s currently booking artists for the American Songbook series. And he’s thinking ahead to next summer, when he will again take the reins at Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City as visual director.
A native of the Philippines, he’s been a New Yorker for more than 30 years. Mr. Ramos, 51, lives in a townhouse in Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan with his husband, Jason Moff, 48, a securities litigation attorney who takes on pro bono L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy work, and their 8-year-old daughter. The Broadway actress Kecia Lewis lives upstairs.
Mr. Ramos spent a recent Tuesday — his birthday — with The New York Times, running from school drop-off to meetings until he hit the road for the Berkshires, where his family spent Thanksgiving tucked away in their cabin.
“I love it there,” he said. “I feel like every time we drive up, I start to breathe and center myself.”
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited.
MORNING SHIFT For eight years, since my daughter was born, I’ve been on breakfast duty every morning. We kind of end up splitting the day, where my husband is on night duty and I’m on morning duty, because I work in show business and there are a lot of evenings I’m not home. Morning duty is breakfast, bringing her to school and, when I can, taking her to appointments like the dentist.
ADD-ONS, DELIVERIES Breakfast is at 6:45. I feel like a short-order cook. The options are cereal or oatmeal with maple syrup or eggs and toast, but she switches it up so it’s an egg-and-cheese sandwich or oatmeal with apple slices. I have coffee and a slice of toast. I’ve been drinking Café Bustelo for decades, with almond milk. I make it in a French press.
TOO SLOW Most of the time I drive her to school, because we have a garage. I drive crosstown, then I drop her off and I go to either Lincoln Center or City Center. I park there and take the subway all over the city during the day. My husband loves the crosstown bus, and in that we’re opposites. There’s something about that crosstown bus, the speed of the bus and the number of people in it, all of them trying to get to the East Side, that I’m really not a fan of. I don’t mind a crowded train as long as it’s moving.
TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW While I’m driving I talk to my assistant, Sandro, to set up the day. He’s been my assistant for two years. He’s been able to stick it out. I’m not easy to work for — only because my schedule is bananas. Once I drop my daughter at school, all bets are off: I’m a moving target all the time. I don’t know any other way to be, honestly. I get bored very quickly, so it suits me.
SHOOTS AND SWATCHES If I’m going to Lincoln Center, as soon as I get to my office most of the time I quickly need to leave for a meeting. One of my jobs is artistic director of a theater group, Theatre Group Asia. It kind of fosters what I would say are diasporic conversations and collaborations. We’re doing a show in the Philippines, “A Chorus Line,” so I needed to go down and check on a photo shoot we were doing. I also needed to check on fabrics and the nitty-gritty of the costumes for “Tristan und Isolde” before the holidays, so I met with Robert Bulla at the Metropolitan Opera. He’s the assistant head of costumes there.
AT THE COOL TABLE For lunch, I might go down to the Lincoln Center cafeteria, where all the Juilliard students and American Ballet Theater students go. I’ll get a quick bite.
THE SHOW(S) MUST GO ON Then it’s more meetings. Siobahn Sung is my executive producer for the American Songbook series that Lincoln Center is presenting in the spring. I’m curating 10 acts across four venues, and I’m very excited to be doing it the first year of my residency. So I’ll meet with Siobahn. As producing creative director for “Encores!,” about once a week I’ll go to a workshop or a closed reading for a new play. I might be in the workshop for two or two and a half hours.
ESCAPE My husband and I kind of treat ourselves to an episode of something when my daughter goes to bed. Currently it’s “Squid Game: The Challenge.” I have to say, it’s really, really good — a great way to pass an hour.
SLEEP PATTERNS My husband goes to bed before me, at 11. I go to bed at 1 or 2, and I get up early, at 5:45, so I try to catch up on sleep on the weekends. And I probably shouldn’t even say this, but sometimes I try to sneak in naps during the weekdays — maybe a 30-minute nap between Zoom meetings. My husband always says “I don’t understand what you do after I go to bed,” but I go down these rabbit holes, just looking at stuff, either fashion or architecture.
IN DEEP One of the people I’m following right now is the Mexican American fashion designer Willy Chavarria. His looks are really elevated and so is his advocacy work around what’s happening with migrants. He’s deeply in his art in a way that makes me feel like, Oh, my God. It’s gorgeous. It’s beautiful.
A RECKONING When you get married, when you have a kid, you slowly kind of negotiate with yourself about how much of that thing you really loved doing when you were living alone — how much of it do you retain? I’ve found that the fascinations I have add such value to my life, I’m willing to sacrifice sleep for them. That’s why I’m up late.
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