Transgressing Boundaries with Deb O Guest Speaker

On Wednesday, January 26 at 7pm in Holmes Auditorium as a part of the Weekly Wednesday Artist Speaker Series, Performance Design & Technology presents Transgressing Boundaries with Deb O. Scenographer, 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 making ECUs (electronic control units) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Deb O decided to go to Marquette University where she received 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.

Deb O's 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.

Deb 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.

In the summer of 2019 she traveled with the film to the Noorderzoon Performing Arts Festival in the Dutch city of Groningen. In the summer of 2016/17 Deb O will be creating the environment for the next project The Cherry Orchard. Now the project is moving on to Three Sisters which will complete the canon. She has designed a number of new works and new musicals. Such as Lacy Project, Jihad the Musical, The Daughters, The Deepest Play Ever, F%#king Up Everything, Bubble Boy, Fable, Magical History Tour, Light A Dark Comedy, A Socks Fables, The Material World, and Riddle of the Trilobites. In Time Out New York The Material World was chosen to be one of the top 10 shows of 2012. She has been in the rehearsal room helping develop a new play; Light: A Dark Comedy. This new project was work shopped at the New Victory.

Deb O is a founding member and co-director of Artbarn, 2013 to 2017. Artbarn is 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.

Deb O is a member of the Wingspace design collective. She taught design at NYU's Tisch -- Playwrights Horizons Theater School for eight years. She will also be teaching a site specific class this fall at University of Puget Sound and For the several years taught a collaboration class to the MFA directors at Brown University in Rhode Island. 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, that filmed in Scotland and features Eddie Izzard and Christopher Lloyd.