Renowned scenographer Deb O to present at Jan. 26 Wednesday Artists’ Speaker Series

ALFRED, NY— The Weekly Wednesday Artists’ Speaker Series at Alfred University continues on Wednesday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. with a lecture by Deb O, scenographer. The presentation is offered by the Division of Performing Arts Division’s Performance Design and Technology department.

In the Weekly Wednesday Artists’ Speaker Series, faculty and staff in the School of Art and Design/Performing Arts Division, as well as guest artists, present short talks on their creative practice outside of the classroom. The series—offered both in-person and virtually—aims to engage the Alfred community by creating a unique sharing space focusing on the arts. The presentation will be offered in Holmes Theater, Harder Hall. For those who prefer to take in the presentation virtually, it will be offered via Zoom.

Deb O’s lecture, titled “Transgressing Boundaries with Deb O,” will share her extensive design work, and explore her varied artistic background and how it all coalesces into a unified practice that defies labels.

After spending eighteen years working in a factory in Wisconsin making electronic control units Deb O earned her undergraduate degree in theatre design with a minor in studio art and art history. She then went on to receive her MFA in Theatre Design at Yale School of Drama.

Her extensive scenography training and range of experiences as well as her background in folk art, dance, gymnastics, clowning, puppetry, found object art, sculpture and mask making have lent themselves to innovative approaches to the creation of unique theatrical events. She has enjoyed intimate, long-term collaborations with theater directors Brian Mertes, Tamilla Woodard, Alex Harvey, Curt Columbus, Stephen Brackett, GT Upchurch, Melissa Kievman, Lee Sunday Evans, Mia Rovegno, Jess K Smith, and dance-theatre makers Dan Safer of Witness Relocation, Tami Stronach Dance, Sam Pinkleton, and Diane Vanderhei and Tom Thoreson of Footworks Dance Company. She has also designed numerous, memorable special events and exhibits.

With director Brian Mertes and The Lake Lucille Project, since 2007 Deb O has devised and created large-scale, environmental designs for day-long performances of each of Chekhov's great works. With playwright/producer Beau Willimon and directors Brian Mertes and Alex Harvey, the project moved to a giant warehouse in Sunset Park, Brooklyn for an epic environmental staging of Lanford Wilson’s “Balm In Gilead.” In the Summer of 2014 the Lake Lucille Company embarked on its next project the making of a film “I Am A Seagull,” in which Deb O was the production designer.

Deb O is a founding member and co-director of Artbarn—a collective of innovative artists from across disciplines and around the country who gather for an annual residency to collaboratively generate original site-specific work— is a member of the Wingspace design collective. She taught design at NYU's Tisch -- Playwrights Horizons Theater School for eight years, and for several years she taught a collaboration class to the MFA directors at Brown University in Providence, RI. She has given master classes at Marquette, Fairmont University, Meredith College, Hunter College and the Met. In 2016 she was invited to USITT to speak about site-specific theater. Deb O recently completed work as a production designer on the movie, “Man and Witch,” filmed in Scotland and featuring Eddie Izzard and Christopher Lloyd.