UNT Press

About Walker's Dreams and Ideas

Dreams and Ideas celebrates the legacy of American theatrical designer John Winniford “Winn” Morton (1928–2022), a Texan who made his way to New York to begin a stellar career that lasted from when he was 18 until he finally retired at 90. More than 150 photographs and original color illustrations demonstrate how Morton paid careful attention to the look of every single performer, consciously conveying character through clothing.

Morton started in the early years of live television and then moved to the Roxy Theatre, where fanciful showgirl and skater costumes sprang wholly from his imagination. By 1960 he was appointed head designer for Jones Beach Theater, a key role at a unique, popular destination that he maintained for a remarkable seventeen seasons. Over the same period, he also designed costumes for select Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including Oklahoma!, industrial musicals, and Dick Button’s Ice-Travaganza skating show at the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair.

His prolific career in New York continued into the late 1970s, until the life-changing event of his mother’s death prompted his return to Dallas County. He was quickly hired as artistic director of sets and costumes for Six Flags Over Texas Productions, dressing hundreds of actors in themed musicals performed in the brand’s multiple amusement parks nationwide. He also styled lavish galas and private parties in Dallas in the 1980s and 1990s and designed all of the costumes for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’s 1985–1986 tour.

At age 54 Morton began the longest-running commission of his career: the Texas Rose Festival in Tyler. He first designed elaborate, bejeweled gowns, trains, crowns, hats, and children’s attire for the glittering festival beginning in 1982, adding set designs to his duties ten years later. At his final Rose Festival presentation in 2019, the organization paid tribute to his extraordinary contributions. Dreams and Ideas is the first full-length account of Winn Morton’s achievements in costume and set design.