Posted: 10/25/20 at 3:50pm
We lost one of the greats on Friday, when Ming Cho Lee passed away at the age of 90. He forever changed how sets are designed on Broadway, the Opera Stage, the Regional Stage, and anywhere that practices the art of great set design. He also changed how set design is understood for countless graduates of the design program at the Yale School of Drama, where he taught for 46 years. I count myself very fortunate-- I was one of Ming's students.
Ming revolutionized set design in the 1960's with his seminal work at The Public Theater and New York Shakespeare Festival when he stripped away design to its essence by suspending graphic or sculptural pieces on networks of pipes, poles and scaffolding. Look at his design for the off-Broadway "HAIR" or "MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING", or countless shows at the Delacorte to see how evocative and adaptable this approach could be.
He took this framework to new heights with his extravagant sets for the Met Stage and New York City Opera. But Broadway proved a tough nut to crack. If you look through Arnold Aronson's gorgeous monograph "Ming Cho Lee, A Life in Design", you'll weep at the series of lovely designs Ming did for shows that barely saw the light of day. "TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA" was a hit, and "K-2" won Ming a Tony, but oh to have seen his sets for "Angel" or "Lolita My Love" in person! I actually did see his exquisite designs for "THE GRAND TOUR", a flop Jerry Herman musical from 1980. He never succumbed to the threat of failure, and was still designing gorgeous sets into the 21st century.
For us lucky ones who withstood 3 years in the graduate design program Ming ran at Yale, no mentor looms larger in our lives. He was gentle but merciless in his critiques of our first timid sketches, always eager to strip away the excesses and serve the story. Each of us carries one or two tricks of the trade we only learned at Ming's behest. I will forever sketch my sketches on onionskin paper with black ink and whiteout pens for highlights because that's how Ming taught us to do it back in 1978, and nothing works better.
He was a giant. He was an artist. He will be missed by so many.
Steve Saklad
YSD Class of '81
Updated On: 10/25/20 at 03:50 PM
