Holly Poe Durbin

Holly Poe Durbin is professor of drama at UC Irvine, where she teaches costume design and supervises student designers in theater, film, opera, and digital media projects. She combines design aesthetics with leadership training and industry practice, preparing students for careers across a rapidly shifting entertainment profession. Her courses include Digital Costume Rendering, Digital Textile Design and Printing, Textile Surface Modification, and The Visual Story, a seminar on the role of visual design in film.

Durbin began her professional career at 19 and has since designed costumes for theater, national and world tours, independent film, opera, and themed entertainment. Her work has appeared on Broadway, London’s West End, Off-Broadway, and in productions across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Regional credits include South Coast Repertory, Portland Center Stage, the Old Globe, Geffen Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Cincinnati Playhouse, and Huntington Theatre in Boston. Her projects include the Los Angeles production of Much Ado About Nothing starring Helen Hunt and Lyle Lovett, the Off-Broadway productions Top Secret and The Power of Darkness, and the independent film How to Get to Candybar. Her film and television career spans set costumer, wardrobe supervisor, costume production manager, and costume designer.

She earned her B.A. from Vanderbilt University, completed a costume management internship with the Royal Opera in London, and trained at the Santa Fe Opera, where she later joined the staff. She served as costume director for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles before earning her M.F.A. from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television.

Durbin has served on the Western Region Board of the Costume Society of America and is currently on the Board of Directors for U/RTA. She received the United States Institute for Theatre Technology’s Herbert D. Greggs Award for her three-part TD&T article series “Seeing With Three Eyes: Designing for Different Media.”

Her students’ accomplishments span the entertainment industry, including work as designers, artisans, film and television costumers, educators, and theme park and museum professionals.