Author Description

Biographical essays on twenty-five American theatrical designers--scenery, costumes, lighting, sound, and makeup--including extensive illustrations of their work. This book is part of a series of monographs published by United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) to record the great heritage of designers in the United States. Previous books in the series have been profiles of active designers at the pinnacles of their careers: costume designer Willa Kim, set designer Ming Cho Lee, lighting designer Tharon Musser, sound designer Abe Jacob, and lighting designer Jules Fisher. "Late & Great: American Designers, 1960-2010" looks back at some of the best designers no longer with us, but who were active during USITT's first fifty years, 1960 to 2010. These include Ralph Alswang, Martin Aronstein, Lucinda Ballard, Howard Bay, Harold Burris-Meyer, Peggy Clark, Alvin Colt, Judy Dearing, Raoul Pene du Bois, Ben Edwards, Abe Feder, Arden Fingerhut, John Gleason, Gilbert Hemsley, Bernard Johnson, Richard Nelson, Ben Nye, Chris Parry, Irene Sharaff, Thomas Skelton, Oliver Smith, Rouben Ter-Arutunian, Miles White, Freddy Wittop, and Patricia Zipprodt. The introduction by Arnold Aronson, chair of the theatre program at Columbia University and author of the indispensable "American Set Design," traces the evolution of American scenography and contrasts it with European styles and trends. Twenty-seven authors contributed the twenty-five biographical essays: Ann M. Archbold (Aronstein), Jade Bettin (Colt and Dearing), Jody Blake (Ter-Arutunian), Whitney Blausen (Zipprodt), John L. Bracewell (Burris-Meyer), Gail Brassard (Sharaff), Ben Coolik (Clark), by Annie O. Cleveland and M. Barrett Cleveland (Feder), Jeff Davis (Nelson), Patricia Dennis (Nye), Richard E. Dunham (Skelton), Linda Essig (Fingerhut and Gleason), Laura Hanson and Robert Lewis Smith (Smith),, Holly Monsos (White), Mike Monsos (Alswang), Bobbi Owen (du Bois), Sylvia Hillyard Pannell (Wittop