Carrie Robbins, a meticulous and resourceful costume designer who worked on more than 30 Broadway shows from the 1960s to the 2000s, died on April 12, in Manhattan. She was 81.

Critics hailed Ms. Robbins’ costumes over the years for transporting audiences to the Spain of Don Quixote, the underworld of early-18th-century London, and the ruined South during the Civil War. For “Grease,” she studied high school yearbooks from the 1950s. For a 1992 musical version of “Anna Karenina,” she found ball gowns from the turn of the 20th century. Describing Ms. Robbins’ work on a 1985 Broadway production of “The Octette Bridge Club,” a play by P.J. Barry set in the 1930s, The Reporter Dispatch of White Plains said she seemed “to have raided every thrift shop in town.” She said her biggest thrill in designing costumes was watching actors transform. “The guys in ‘Grease’ were reluctant to have their hair cut,” she said. “But when we cut it, put them in tapered pants and a jacket with the collar turned up, there they were — swaggering around the stage and flipping grease off their combs.”