 |
Beowulf Boritt | |
|---|---|
 Boritt at the 76th Tony Awards in 2023 | |
| Education | Vassar College (AB) New York University (MFA) |
| Occupation | Scenic designer |
| Spouse | Mimi Bilinski |
| Awards | |
| Website | beowulfborittdesign |
Beowulf Boritt is a New York City-based scenic designer for theater. He is known for his scenic design for the play Act One , which earned him the 2014 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in a Play. [1]
Boritt was born to American Civil War scholar Gabor Boritt and his wife, Elizabeth Boritt, an aspiring opera singer. Gabor Boritt fled Hungary for South Dakota after the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. [2] They reside in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. [2] Boritt has two brothers, Jake Boritt who is a film producer and Daniel Boritt who is a biologist specializing in birds.[ citation needed ]
Boritt cites his grandmother Anita Marie Wilson Norseen Hooker as a major inspiration for designing sets, as she was an artist and scenic designer at Wellesley College but was told that it was not appropriate for a woman to do in the 1930s. "She encouraged me artistically to express myself and bought me my first set of oil paints. My parents encouraged me, yes, but my grandmother was the big influence." [3]
Boritt went on to receive his A.B. from Vassar College where he pursued a degree in literature, not believing he could make it in scenic design:
I honestly don't think I meant to become a professional designer. I'm a little disingenuous for saying that, but I don't think I thought it was possible. I don't know if there was ever a moment where I said I'm going to pursue this. I thought I might become a college professor and teach set design somewhere. To do that I needed a master's degree. I started designing around the city a little bit while I was in graduate school and one thing led to another and I had several lucky breaks and started building a career. [4]
Then, he received his M.F.A. from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts program for design for stage and film. [5]
He is married to actress Mimi Bilinski. [6]
After meeting Boritt at NYU, Hal Prince asked him to design Daisy Prince's production of The Last Five Years and later Prince's production Paradise Found . Soon after, designing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee launched his career on Broadway. [7]
Since then, he has designed over 20 Broadway shows, including his Tony Award-winning Act One and -nominated The Scottsboro Boys .
In 2007, he was awarded the Obie Award for sustained excellence in scenic design. [8] He has also won the AUDELCO Award for set design in 2002 and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design. [9]
In 2015, Boritt designed the set for the Broadway debut of Helen Edmundson's play Thérèse Raquin. [10]
In 2016, Boritt was featured in a Microsoft Windows 10 commercial that aired nationwide. [11]
In 2016, he designed Chinese and American cooperated Broadway shows 'Jay Chou's The Secret'.
In 2017, he was featured in a New York Times article about his renovation of his home using his scenic design expertise. [6]
| Year | Award | Show | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | AUDELCO Set Design | Saint Lucy's Eyes | Won | [9] |
| Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design | The Last Five Years | Nominated | ||
| 2004 | Barrymore Award | Talley's Folly | Nominated | |
| 2006 | Hewes Design Award for Scenic Design | The Other Side | Nominated | |
| Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Scenic Design | Nominated | |||
| 2007 | Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Set Design | Won | [8] | |
| Hewes Design Award for Scenic Design | LoveMusik | Nominated | ||
| Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design | Nominated | |||
| 2008 | Spain | Nominated | ||
| Barrymore Award | Art | Won | ||
| 2009 | Hewes Design Award for Scenic Design | The Toxic Avenger | Nominated | |
| Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Scenic Design | Animals Out of Paper | Nominated | ||
| 2010 | Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Set Design | Sondheim on Sondheim | Nominated | |
| Hewes Design Award for Scenic Design | Nominated | |||
| 2011 | Tony Award for Best Scenic Design | The Scottsboro Boys | Nominated | |
| 2012 | Tina Award for Best Scenic Design | The Blue Flower | Won | |
| 2013 | Hewes Design Award for Scenic Design | All in the Timing | Nominated | |
| If There Is I Haven't Found it Yet | Nominated | |||
| Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Scenic Design | Nominated | |||
| 2014 | Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of Play | Act One | Won | [1] |
| Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Set Design | Nominated | |||
| 2016 | Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of Play | Thérèse Raquin | Nominated | |
| Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Set Design | Nominated | |||
| 2022 | Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Scenic Design | Flying Over Sunset | Nominated | [12] |
| Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in a Musical | Nominated | [13] [14] | ||
| Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in a Play | POTUS | Nominated | ||
| 2023 | Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical | New York, New York | Won | [15] |
| Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Scenic Design in a Musical | Won | |||
| Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Scenic Design (Play or Musical) | Won | |||
| Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Video or Projection Design (Play or Musical) (with Christopher Ash) | Nominated | |||
In 2022 Boritt founded The 1/52 Project, a financial grant program to encourage early career designers from historically excluded groups. [16]
Bob Crowley is a theatre designer, and theatre director. He lives between London, New York and West Cork in the south west of Ireland.
Thou Shalt Not is a musical based on Émile Zola's 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin with music and lyrics by Harry Connick Jr. and an adapted book by David Thompson. The musical deals with the consequences involved in the breaking of several Commandments, in particular the sixth and seventh. It ran on Broadway in 2001.
Derek McLane is an American set designer for theatre, opera, and television. He graduated with a BA from Harvard College and an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
John Lee Beatty is an American scenic designer who has created set designs for more than 115 Broadway shows and has designed for other productions. He won two Tony Awards, for Talley's Folly (1980) and The Nance (2013), was nominated for 13 more, and he won five Drama Desk Awards and was nominated for 10 others.
Martin Pakledinaz was an American costume designer for stage and film.
Michael Greif is an American stage director. He has won three Obie Awards and received five Tony Award nominations, for Rent, Grey Gardens, next to normal (sic), Dear Evan Hansen, and Hell's Kitchen.
Jane Greenwood is a British costume designer for the stage, television, film, opera, and dance. Born in Liverpool, England, she works both in England and the United States. She has been nominated for the Tony Award for costume design twenty-one times and won the award for her work on The Little Foxes.
Christine Jones is an American multidisciplinary artist for theater, opera, public art, and digital media. Beyond her Broadway, Off-Broadway, and West End Scenic Design, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, American Idiot, and Spring Awakening, Jones is invested in inclusive public art and the wide reach of the digital realm. Her initiative Theatre for One, a mobile performance space designed for a single audience member and actor in collaboration with LOT-EK Architects, has held residencies at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Arts Brookfield, Cork Midsummer Festival, the Times Square Alliance for Public Art, and universities across the globe. Theatre for One’s accompanying digital platform, co-created with Jenny Koons, and designed by OpenEndedGroup, was launched during the pandemic.
Anna Louizos is an American scenic designer and art director. She is known for her Tony Award-nominated sets for the musicals In the Heights,High Fidelityand The Mystery of Edwin Drood as well as the London, Broadway, Las Vegas, and touring productions of Avenue Q. Louizos was represented on Broadway with School of Rockat The Wintergarden Theatre,Holiday Inn (2016),Honeymoon in Vegas,Dames at Sea (2015),Cinderella at the Broadway Theatre in 2013–15.Other Broadway designs include Curtains (2007),,It Shoulda Been You,White Christmas on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre,The Performers,Steel Magnoliasand Golda's Balcony
Donyale Werle is a scenic designer from Nashville, Tennessee.
Heidi Ettinger, also known by her former married name Heidi Landesman, is an American theatre producer and set designer. She studied at Occidental College and the Yale School of Drama. She was the first woman to win a Tony Award for set design, which she won for the musical Big River. She has also won the Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle awards and an Obie Award.
Gabriel Ebert is an American stage actor and singer. In 2013, he received a Tony Award for his featured role as Mr. Wormwood in Matilda the Musical.
Elaine J. McCarthy is an American projection and video designer for theater and opera.
Peter Nigrini is an American projection designer of live theater. His best-known designs include Dear Evan Hansen, Fela!, and Here Lies Love. He also works occasionally as a scenic and lighting designer, most notably his long standing collaboration with Nature Theater of Oklahoma, of which he is a founding member. He is also a lecturer at New York University
Desmond Heeley was a British set and costume designer who had an active international career in theater, ballet and opera from the late 1940s through the 2010s.
Thomas Lynch is a professor at the University of Washington School of Drama. He teaches graduate students exclusively in opera scenery design.
David Zinn is a costume and scenic designer based in New York, New York. He has been nominated ten times for the Tony Award for both his costume designs and scenic designs, winning two Best Scenic Design for a Play awards for The Humans in 2016 and Stereophonic in 2024 and one Best Scenic Design in a Musical award for SpongeBob SquarePants in 2018. He has over 80 Off-Broadway credits in his lifetime.
Dane Laffrey is an American scenic designer best known for Broadway shows Parade (2023), Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol(2022) Once on This Island (2017), Spring Awakening (2015), and Fool for Love (2015), and Off-Broadway shows The Christians (2015), Cloud Nine (2015), and Rancho Viejo (2016).
Lee Jellinek is a New York City based scenic designer known for his work on A Life at Playwrights Horizons.
Clint Ramos is a Filipino-American costume and set designer for stage and screen. For his work on the 2016 Broadway production of Eclipsed, Ramos became the first person of color to win the Tony Award for Best Costume Design in a Play.