Inspired By the Past, Designing for the Future
Theatre designer Richard Pilbrow tackles the challenges of tomorrow
The highly dynamic, interactive, flexible spaces in the Regional Performing Arts Center evolved from designer Richard Pilbrow’s conviction that RPAC must anticipate the future while honoring the past.
"The future will see the merging of performance art forms and experimentation into new styles of presentation, as well as new relationships between the spectator and performer," said Pilbrow. "While drawing inspiration from the great concert hall and theatre traditions, our designs shall anticipate the development of the art forms and allow for their growth and change."
Pilbrow is founder and chairman of Theater Projects Consultants, the pre-eminent theatre consulting organization in the world, with more than 500 projects in 40 countries to its credit. He is also a theatre, film, and television producer and an internationally-known author and stage lighting designer. He was the lighting designer of the Hal Prince hit revival of Broadway’s Showboat (Drama Desk, Outer Circle Critics Award--Best Lighting), which played at Philadelphia’s Forrest Theater during its recent national tour. His current Broadway production is the Cy Coleman musical The Life, for which he received a Tony award nomination.
A London native who now lives and works in Connecticut, Pilbrow was chosen by Sir Laurence Olivier to be the theatre consultant for the National Theatre of Great Britain. He was also the theatre consultant to the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican Theatre and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
Pilbrow’s recent projects include the Aronoff Center for the Arts, Cincinnati, OH; New Amsterdam Theatre Renovation, 42nd Street, New York, NY; Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, Lenox, MA; Novo Teatro Opera House São Paulo, Brazil; Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Cerritos, CA; Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA; and the Goodman and Steppenwolf Theatres in Chicago, IL.
A pioneer of modern stage lighting in Britain, Pilbrow’s work has been seen in London, New York, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow. He was the first British lighting designer to design the lighting for a Broadway musical, Zorba. On Broadway, he was lighting designer for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Rothschilds, and -- at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre -- Four Baboons Adoring The Sun (1993 Tony Award nomination).
In 1970, Pilbrow’s book, Stage Lighting, with a foreword by Lord Olivier, became a standard book in its field in Great Britain and the United States. A new book, Stage Lighting Design: The Art, The Craft, The Life was published in 1997. It received a Theatre Crafts International "Lighting Product of the Year" Award for 1998.
As a commercial theatre producer, Pilbrow’s long partnership with Harold Prince led to a collaboration as the London producer of such Broadway hits as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret, Company, and A Little Night Music.
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