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Collection Data
- Description
- The work represented in this collection includes designs for Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional productions, international tours, and Nelson's plans for the Ronald Reagan Library. The materials are light plots, lighting sections, channel hookups, dimmer hookups, instrument schedules, shop orders, magic sheets, cue sheets, focus charts, scripts, and supporting design documents. Professional papers include resume material and documentation of Nelson's Lucida Corporation.
- Names
- Nelson, Richard, 1938-1996 (Creator)
- Nelson, Richard, 1938-1996 (Lighting designer)
- Dates / Origin
- Date Created: 1966 - 1996
- Library locations
- Billy Rose Theatre Division
- Shelf locator: *T-Vim 2000-014
- Topics
- Off-Broadway theater
- Stage lighting
- Theater -- New York (State) -- New York
- Stage lighting designers
- Genres
- Design drawings
- Clippings
- Programs
- Notes
- Biographical/historical: Richard Nelson created the lighting for more than 70 Broadway productions, including ''Sunday in the Park With George,'' for which he won Tony and Drama Desk awards. His other Broadway credits include ''Into the Woods,'' ''Morning's at Seven'' and ''The Tap Dance Kid.'' Mr. Nelson also designed the lighting for many Off Broadway plays and musicals, including David Henry Hwang's ''Golden Child'' at the Joseph Papp Public Theater.
He was also known as a designer who, during a 40-year international career, helped to define the use of light as an important element in modern dance. Beginning in 1959, he worked with such choreographers as Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Erick Hawkins and James Waring. From 1968 to 1973, he was the resident lighting designer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Nelson's designs were also seen at the Goodspeed Opera House in Chester, Conn., the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and Center Stage in Baltimore, where he created the lighting for a production of Bertolt Brecht's ''Galileo.'' He also worked with Steve Reich, the composer, and Beryl Korot, the video artist, on ''The Cave,'' an opera toured internationally in the 1990s. His architectural lighting designs include the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. He was also an associate professor of theater at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor from 1988 to 1991 and taught in the design department at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University until his death.
© 1996 by Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times.
- Content: The work represented in this collection includes designs for Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional productions, international tours, and Nelson's plans for the Ronald Reagan Library. The material consists of light plots, lighting sections, channel hookups, dimmer hookups, instrument schedules, shop orders, magic sheets, cue sheets, focus charts, scripts, and supporting design documents. Professional papers include resume material and documentation of the Lucida Corporation.
Paperwork, in many instances, shows work in progress rather than finalized. Some documentation of tours shows the progression of the lighting solutions over time. The magic sheets, called "schemagics", are particularly instructive.
Advance notice is required.
- Physical Description
- Extent: 26.6 linear feet (121 boxes and 1 oversized folder)
- Type of Resource
- Text
- Still image
- Identifiers
- NYPL catalog ID (B-number): b16733067
- MSS Unit ID: 21817
- Universal Unique Identifier (UUID): 39dc7130-6791-0138-def4-0b38894de810
