About

Greetings.

Thank you for taking the time to view my work and my site.

I'm a theatre designer and like everyone else that does this job I have my own way of defining it. It's not carved in stone but it's pretty well thought out through my 20+ years in the field. I started out wanting to be an actor and learned early enough that I loved theatre but didn't love acting. I enjoyed it, but that's different. I've had a great many mentors in my career and one piece of wisdom they have all shared with me is that if you don't love it - find something else to do. The work is too hard and the hours too long (and the money too short) to do it if you don't love it... a LOT. Well, I DO love designing.

And to me, designing is really storytelling, or more specifically, creating storytelling spaces. When you look at my production photos you'll see that things do get pretty weird but I like to think that weirdest of them is rooted in the intention that the design made the actors' and the director's work easier and better by giving them the right world to inhabit for the story they had to tell. It's great fun to try and figure out where a story takes place. Not "location", but "setting". This to me is the key. What kind of world does this story inhabit? What are its rules? What is its style? Rhythm? Line? Pace? Visual vocabulary?

Focusing on design this way is also the way to avoid the traps; the gorgeous but overbearing monster design or the design that is accurate in every conceivable historical detail but drowns the acting ("spectacular wedding but where was the bride?") or the brilliant concept that gets everyone in the design meeting excited but eventually causes you to have to make script changes and/or hope that the audience doesn't notice those little things that you couldn't make fit. I know others have made a career out of things like this but I have to say I always regret it when I have to ask the audience to forgive something - or worse - not notice it. This is what I tend to call "neat idea" theatre. I'm guilty of it. We all are. But when I do I always find myself struggling to breathe. It doesn't flow. It lacks grace. It's not elegant.

For my money the most rewarding work is where the team can discover just the right balance between aesthetic richness and restraint. Between accuracy and theatricality. Between "concept" and action. Plays are not ideas. They are events. They happen (verbs not nouns). They occur in a time and in a place and that gives me plenty to play with. With these elements and a strong and playful team we can find something that feels right; that feeling like a resounding chord has been struck 20 stories beneath your feet. It grounds you and lets you know you "got it".

Lastly, I need to say one more thing about why I value what I do so very much. My career has introduced me to some of the best and most important people in my life. The relationships you develop in working through a production are tremendously rewarding. I have been blessed with some great collaborators over the past years and after looking at the photos should you like to know who costumed something I set or who set something I lit, go ahead and shoot me an email and I'll get you their info. (The directors are listed on the resumé.) Hire them. They're good at what they do.

I welcome your feedback (constructive preferred) to anything you see or read here. And thank you again for taking a look.

-Matthew

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