Dare to Dream as a Designer

Advice from SETC’s 2019 Distinguished Designers

by Jonathon Taylor

The guest designers who adjudicate entries each year in SETC’s annual Design Competition also provide important career insights and advice during a Thursday night keynote.

On the pages that follow, we share highlights of the wisdom imparted by the 2019 distinguished designers: scenic designer Riccardo Hernández, costume designer Linda Cho, lighting designer Jonathan Spencer and sound designer Victoria Deiorio. We also present examples of their design work, starting with Hernández’s set (featuring an onstage 4-foot-deep swimming pool) for Red Speedo, Lucas Hnath’s play about a swimmer facing an ethical dilemma, presented at the New York Theatre Workshop.

RICCARDO HERNÁNDEZ on Scenic Design

Riccardo Hernández studies an entry in the Design Competition at the 2019 SETC Convention.

Caitie McMekin

Let your imagination soar.

Riccardo Hernández has designed more than 250 productions at leading theatres and operas in the U.S. and around the world. His numerous awards include the 2017 OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence in Scenic Design, the 2015 Henry Hewes Design Award, the Princess Grace Statue Award, the Tony Award and multiple Drama Desk Awards. This summer, his set design is being seen on Broadway in Frankie and Johnny at the Claire de Lune. Born in Cuba and raised in Buenos Aires, Hernández was introduced to the arts by his father, an opera singer. At age 7, “I saw my very first opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, with the great Beverly Sills and the legendary Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus,” Hernández told his keynote audience. The production, he said, was designed by Ming Cho Lee, who would become his teacher 17 years later when Hernández earned his MFA at the Yale School of Drama.

In his keynote, Hernández shared highlights from his long career and urged his audience to view theatreas a means of and space for exploration, growth and understanding.

1. Develop strong relationships with fellow artists to fuel your development.

From his first professional job on Suzan Lori Parks’ The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World at the Yale Repertory Theater, Hernández moved on to work at American Repertory Theater and The Public Theater in New York, theatres where he says he developed the first of many “life-changing working relationships” over the years with directors, playwrights and others in theatre.

“All these great theatre artists made me see stage design and theatre as something completely different from what I envisaged as a young man,” he said. “They taught me about theatrical spaces that are not descriptive or plainly two-dimensional but spaces that invite our imagination to soar.”

“In the same way an actor is real, the materials I began to use have to be real: wood, steel, aluminum, plywood, glass, plexiglass, dirt, rocks, leaves, water. All were used in their natural beauty so that truthfulness was achieved, a truthfulness was achieved in the service of a play, opera or musical. Granted, all of these require more funding, but I learned to fight for the materials because I knew this was crucial and critical for the poetic reality we were all in search of.”

Ten years ago, Hernández said, he made a commitment to teach as well as to design – a move that “made me rethink so much how to approach not just scene design, but theatre as a whole.” Noting “these sad times we live in today have deeply affected our youth,” Hernández said he finds students “have so much to say, so, so much, and we need to listen more than ever.”

He also noted that he has come to recognize how “our individual journeys are interconnected, all of us, including teachers and students, how all the great artists we grow with are all part of an amazing life tapestry.” Every interaction, every relationship, has the potential to spur growth and development, and each one is an opportunity for strengthening one another’s voices.

“I encourage you to seek out the new, the unknown, and sometimes uncomfortable discussions and discoveries that help us to capture and present, for a brief moment, the very essence of humanity,” he said.

Hernández, whose design credo includes using “real” materials, created an actual swimming pool for the play Red Speedo, with plexiglass at the front providing a window to the action.

Joan Marcus

2. Support the contributions of other artists, past and present.

Addressing artists and educators, Hernández strongly emphasized that “we must continue to build upon the foundations of artists like George C. Wolfe [playwright, director and former Public Theater artistic director] and Diane Paulus [American Repertory Theater artistic director] and a new wave of artistic directors” in American theatre. Specifically, Hernández pointed to Stephanie Ybarra at Baltimore Center Stage in Maryland, Jacob Padron at the Long Wharf Theatre in Connecticut, Pam MacKinnon at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and Melia Bensussen at Hartford Stage in Connecticut. He urged the audience to know these artists and understand their impact on theatre: “Let us celebrate this diverse leadership as they embark on nurturing a more inclusive and dynamic stage like we have never seen before.”

3. Dare to dream and seek out the improbable.

In an impassioned dénouement to his keynote address, Mr. Hernández continued his call for daring and for a new and diverse future for American theatre. “Be a dreamer,” he said. “Go against all that seems probable.” Later, he continued, “Flow with the flux of change and chance … Discipline yourself in the liberal arts so that you can learn from literature and poetry, history, philosophy, music, film, and from all the great theatre makers, past and present, from Antonin Artaud to Ingmar Bergman, from Angelica Liddell to Romeo Castellucci, from María Irene Fornés to Suzan-Lori Parks.”

4. Broaden your sense of what theatre is and what it can do.

During the Q&A session following the keynotes, the designers were asked about burnout and methods for keeping their work fresh and as original as possible. Hernández went a different direction from the others on the panel of designers, suggesting that burnout can be addressed by opening our eyes to innovations in theatre elsewhere. “You should look at what’s happening in the rest of the globe, and I don’t mean just Europe,” he said. “I’m talking about the rest of the globe. It’s just different … The minute you see what others are daring to do out there, it’s deeply inspiring.”

LINDA CHO on Costume Design

Linda Cho examines a costume that was part of an entry in the Design Competition at the 2019 SETC Convention.

Caitie McMekin

Find your community.

Linda Cho won a Tony Award for costume design in 2014 for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, which also earned her the Henry Hewes Design Award. Nominated in 2017 for the Tony Award, the Outer Critic’s Circle and Drama Desk Awards for Best Costume Design of a Musical for Anastasia, she also designed the costumes for Anastasia’s U.S. tour (pictured on the magazine cover and on Page 20). In 2018, she was a member of Broadway’s first all-female creative team for The Lifespan of a Fact. Born in Korea and raised in Canada, Cho told her audience that she grew up with “tiger parents” who initially pushed her toward a career in the sciences. She loved a theatre class she took while earning an undergraduate degree in psychology and, as she struggled with what to do after graduation, her mother finally said, “Why don’t you do this theatre thing? You seem to love it.” She went on to earn her MFA in design from the Yale School of Drama.

In addition to discussing her career in costume design, Cho shared her experience as a working theatre artist, a mom and a woman of color working in theatre.

1. Nurture creative partnerships with your peers.

She urged early-career designers and technicians working in regional theatre to be alert for co-workers who are at a similar experience level. Those individuals, she said, will join with them to create a ready-made community of artists who know each other’s work and strengths, which can be invaluable in landing jobs going forward. “It’s not the famous director who’s going to hire the unknown,” she said.

Cho said she discovered her ready-made group as a happy accident, but their bond became something she and her peers nurtured. One collaborator she mentioned in particular is director Darko Tresnjak, “who I’ve now done 56 shows with.” They met early in their careers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

“You meet the people that are your level, and you’re going to grow with them and you’re going to run into them throughout your career,” she said. “Those are the people that will support you and develop with you.”

Cho, who received multiple Best Costume Award nominations for Broadway’s Anastasia, which closed in March, also designed the costumes for the musical’s current U.S. tour (anastasiathemusical. com/tour), pictured on the cover of this magazine and above. In the photo on this page, Victoria Bingham is Little Anastasia and Joy Franz is Dowager Empress in the national tour of Anastasia.

Evan Zimmerman, MurphyMade

2. Be true to yourself through the work you do.

Since the election of President Donald Trump, Cho said, “I’ve been asked more often about what it means to be a woman and a woman of color in this business.” In reflecting on that question, she harkened back to a conversation she had with well-known designer Ming Cho Lee, one of her teachers at Yale School of Drama. “I asked him, ‘Why aren’t we doing more plays by women? ... What about Asian plays? What about characters that are Asian?’ and ‘Don’t we need to represent who we are?’”

His advice, Cho said, was: “You doing great work as an individual will promote your culture – who you are – and open the door for others.”

That advice, she said, factored into her decision to come to the SETC Convention to share her story as a woman of color. Her decision “to be here and talk to you and to represent” was rooted in an understanding that “this is how doors open. This is how minds open,” she said. She encouraged young designers and technicians of color to represent in similar ways – to take advantage of opportunities to do good work and help pave the way for future artists and stories.

3. Make decisions about graduate study that are rooted in your personal experiences.

During the Q&A session, the designers were asked for advice on when to pursue graduate study. Essentially, should a student go straight from undergraduate school to graduate school, or is it preferable to take time between the two experiences?

Cho noted that the best timing for graduate school isn’t the same for everyone. “For me, it was important to go to grad school right away because I didn’t know anything [about costume design] and I needed somewhere to begin,” she said.

The student who asked the question – a recent theatre graduate still finding a career path in design-tech – might benefit from a different route, she said. That person might want to “go and work for a little bit and see whether it’s the more technical stream you want to go in or design, because they’re two very different concentrated disciplines and you want to make sure that you know which path you want to go on.”

4. Having a family can impact the creative process positively.

Cho, who had her two children after she was well into her career, recommends the experience highly. “I think it’s important to have work and personal balance,” she said. “I think the children give me that. They put things into perspective.”

She also credits them with helping her grow and retain her equilibrium as an artist. “I’m often told in design situations, ‘You’re so calm,’ ” she said. “And in my own mind, it’s like, ‘This is nothing compared to ... my children getting a head injury tobogganing.’”

Cho continued this thought later: “There’s nothing like the love and the extreme emotions that you get to experience with children. So, if you’re thinking about it, I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful life.”

JONATHAN SPENCER on Lighting Design

Jonathan Spencer prepares to adjudicate an entry in the Design Competition at the 2019 SETC Convention.

Caitie McMekin

Believe in yourself as a designer.

Jonathan Spencer is a lighting and scenic designer who works principally on touring productions, in regional theatre and on Off-Broadway productions. He is the lighting designer for the 20th anniversary tour of the musical Rent. In addition to creating his own designs, he is an associate to Broadway designers such as Peggy Eisenhauer, Ken Posner and Ken Billington. A professor of lighting design at the University of Colorado Boulder and Southern Oregon University’s summer master of theatre studies program, Spencer is based in Colorado and New York City.

He described sharing the stage with the other keynote speakers as a humbling experience. Calling their contributions to the field of design “profound,” he used his feelings of humility and gratefulness as a springboard for his advice to young designers.

1. Confront your feelings of being less than others and work through them.

Spencer noted that, like many people, he had a sense when he was starting his career that he was less prepared, less sophisticated and less educated than other people. He had “this disproportionate belief that I am not enough,” Spencer told his keynote audience. “And I’m sharing it with you today because I can go into stage doors on Broadway and it seems normal.” Spencer urged young designers to vigorously fight against any sense of inadequacy they may feel – to“go forward in spite of it.”

Spencer is the lighting designer for the 20th anniversary tour of Rent, now playing across the U.S. (rentontour.net) Shown at left (front) are Kaleb Wells as Roger and Skyler Volpe as Mimi.

Carol Rosegg

2. Don’t fail yourself.

Spencer related a story about one of his first professional jobs in theatre after finishing graduate school. He suspected that his position was in jeopardy because he was not learning the job fast enough and wasn’t meeting expectations. (Years later, he learned his suspicions were correct.) At the time, he was determined to work as hard as was necessary to meet the challenge. Even though he felt like he was out of his depth, he told himself, “If I was going to get fired, they were going to have to fire me. If it was going to be determined that I failed, they would have to be the ones to fail me.”

In the end, despite his doubts, he finished the job and, in the process, created “a lifelong relationship with half the people in that room, and I ended up doing that very production in three different cities around the world.” Spencer finished the story by emphasizing, “Don’t fail yourself. Just do your best. Ask questions… and try hard to be a human.”

3. Make it personal.

Technical mastery is essential for lighting, but bringing personal experience and nuance to the work can help designers more effectively convey specific design ideas and images, Spencer believes. “I have to go into my own experience, my own life, and I need to mine my own experiences and memories in order to bring them generously to the collaborators with whom I’m doing a play,” he said.

Understand that there’s no one right answer to many design questions, Spencer said. He used the example of a young lighting designer who asks another lighting designer about a particular color choice, such as the color he uses for sunrise. When a designer doesn’t provide an answer, it isn’t that the designer doesn’t want to share the answer to the question. “They just don’t know what the answer is for you,” Spencer said. “They don’t know what your 7 a.m. on the day that you’re about to fall in love looks like. They don’t know what the first time you ever danced with a girl in the seventh grade felt like for you. They don’t know what it’s like to be in your skin and watch the world.”

When he came to understand the importance of making it personal, design changed for Spencer: “The answer was in me. The answer didn’t lie in some mysterious other, some thing I wasn’t good enough to make.”

4. Know who to ask for help when you are new.

Responding to a question during the Q&A session about career mistakes, Spencer said “one of the apparently largest mistakes I ever made” was to ask a senior member of the production staff to help him find toner cartridges for the printer. Spencer said it quickly became clear that he was asking the wrong person for help “at the wrong time on the wrong day.” As a newcomer with questions, “I should have asked the other assistants first,” he said. Echoing advice offered by Cho, Spencer suggested that early-career artists seek out their peers when they need help. “Ask around on your level, and then people will help you find the friendly avenues up the chain,” he said.

VICTORIA DEIORIO on Sound Design

Victoria Deiorio listens to a sound design entry in SETC’s 2019 Design Competition.

Caitie McMekin

The goal is to unite, not divide.

Victoria Deiorio is an acclaimed composer and sound designer. She is the chair of the Design/ Tech Department of the Theatre School at DePaul University and was co-chair of the Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA) for four years. She has won seven Jeff Awards and two After Dark Awards for her work in the Chicago area. Her book, The Art of Theatrical Sound Design: A Practical Guide, was published in September 2018 by Methuen Drama. Deiorio began her keynote by discussing her background and trajectory, “because,” she said, “context is everything, especially in sound design and in theatre.” She noted that she is the “daughter of an immigrant, so therefore I am an overachiever.” In addition to working as a sound designer, she has worked as a dancer, a singer and an actor, directed and produced theatre – and left theatre for a while to perform in a rock band. “If you ever have the chance to do that, I highly recommend it,” she said. “It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

In her keynote, Deiorio discussed topics from the current focus on identity to the importance of theatre in uniting people and the value of compassion in dealing with your fellow artists.

1. Defend your place in the process and the business.

When the Tony Awards decided to eliminate the award for sound design in 2014, Deiorio says those in the sound design community “realized that sound designers were all having the same struggles” with issues such as contract negotiations, but also in the realm of “identity and advocacy.” Her response – in concert with her fellow sound designers – was to create an organization, TSDCA, to advocate for sound design and unite designers in this area of theatrical production.

She also discussed being a female sound designer in “a time when identity is at the forefront.” Although a woman was the co-designer on the first recorded sound design job in 1959, she said, many people today think it’s a newer field for women. Identity was not a focus when she started in the industry, Deiorio said.“And I have to say, in my career now, 30 years later,I’m not offended by it, but I’m always surprised and kind of taken aback when somebody looks at me as though I’m new.” She and other women in the sound design field now are trying to change the narrative,she said, making it clear “that we’ve actually been here for a while.”

2. Embrace diversity and inclusion.

Theatre, Deiorio said, brings together a collection of diverse people from diverse backgrounds in what often feels like a divided world.

“I really hope that, as the next generation of theatre artists, you keep this in mind: that the goal is not to divide but to unite, to tell your story to someone who’s never heard it before, to open the minds of audiences,to think and talk about what is important as human beings interacting with each other, no matter what culture you live within,” she said.

Victoria Deiorio created the sound design for Lizzie, presented in 2017 by Firebrand Theatre, a feminist musical theatre in Chicago. Cast members shown above (clockwise from left) are Camille Robinson, Leah Davis, Jacquelyne Jones and Liz Chidester.

Marisa KM

3. Don’t think competitively.

Like Cho, Deiorio emphasized the importance of creating collaborative working relationships that last beyond a single production, as well as having respect and patience for fellow artists as they make their careers.

In a passionate and poetic declaration, Deiorio pointed to the interconnectedness of our worlds. “The actions that I’m bringing forth right now are not isolated from the infrastructure of this place, ... of this city, of this nation,this world, of all of its structures, the history of it, and the narratives ... most importantly, the narratives, the stories. All of it is a dynamic state of relativeness, a living set of relations. So, thus, we are actually responsible for our own actions, but we’re also responsible for each other. And this is only possible with care, trust and safety.” Later, she continued, “Everyone has high points and low points in their career, and this ebb and flow comes at completely different times.” In dealing with others, she said, “I think what’s most important is to have compassion.”

4. Highlights from a designer’s list of how to act in the theatre.

Tweaking a list of duties and responsibilities originally created as chef’s rules for the kitchen, Deiorio closed her keynote with a roster of quick rules for theatre artists. Some of the highlights:

“Show respect for your collaborators on how things are done at each venue.”

“Admit when you’re wrong, and never point out when others are wrong.”

“Expect to have to work your way out of really difficult situations.”

“Show up early.”

“Be coachable at every age.”

“Know about theatre, but be eager to learn more.”

Jonathon Taylor is an assistant professor at East Tennessee State University, where he teaches scenic and costume design, stage management, and theatre design basics. He is a member of the Southern Theatre Editorial Board.