By Delbert Unruh, with foreword by Jon Jory.

$35.00
index, illustrations
112 pages
ISBN: 978-1-933348-10-0

Published by
USITT
in cooperation with
Broadway Press
March 2006

Ming Cho Lee has two careers. He is a prominent designer of opera, Broadway, and regional theatre, and he is the dean of American design education and founder of the annual student portfolio review known as Ming’s Clambake. THE DESIGNS OF MING CHO LEE includes over forty full-color pages with over seventy images of Ming Cho Lee’s work. And, a complete design chronology, an important feature of all the USITT designer monographs, provides a detailed picture of the incredible number and variety of productions he designed.

THE DESIGNS OF MING CHO LEE, published in March 2006, is written by Delbert Unruh, Professor of Theatre and Film at the University of Kansas. He is also a contributing editor of USITT’s quarterly journal, Theatre Design & Technology, for which he has written numerous articles on contemporary European and American design theory.

The book covers Ming Cho Lee’s early years, growing up in Shanghai, attending college in California, and finally coming to New York to assist Jo Mielziner. He quickly became one of the busiest young designers in New York. In 1962, Joseph Papp asked him to be the resident designer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, a position he held for eleven years. During this period, he also had regular design commitments with Joffrey Ballet, Juilliard Opera Theatre, and, later, New York City Opera. Incredibly, between 1962 and 1972 he designed a total of 112 productions.

In 1969, Lee was invited to teach at Yale School of Drama. He became co-chair of the design department in 1979 and continues in that position today. Lee says, “Teaching and designing Shakespeare are the two most important experiences in my development. Teaching allows me to be in constant touch with the younger generation of theatre artists, to become immersed in their thoughts, their frustrations, their needs and aspirations.”

THE DESIGNS OF MING CHO LEE includes a list of exhibitions, special projects, memberships, awards and nominations, as well as a chronology of his designs from 1958 to the present. The foreword is by Jon Jory who, as producing director of Actors Theatre of Louisville, worked with Ming Cho Lee on numerous productions.