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Design for Stage and Film

Courses

Intro to Lighting
Lighting Design III

Education

B.A., South Florida
M.F.A., Yale

Biography

As a lighting designer, Mr. Wierzel has worked with artists from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in theatre, dance, new music, museums and opera on stages throughout the country and abroad.

Productions with opera companies of Paris (Garnier); Tokyo; Toronto; Boston; San Diego; San Francisco; Houston; Washington; Seattle; Virginia; Chicago (including Lyric Opera and Chicago Opera Theatre); Montreal; Vancouver; Minnesota; Florida; Portland; San Diego; Wolf Trap; Omaha; Glimmerglass and New York City Opera among others.

Numerous collaborations (22 years) with choreographer Bill T. Jones and the company of Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (several Bessie Awards, along with productions at the Lyon Opera Ballet and Berlin Opera Ballet); Robert has collaborated with the composer Philip Glass (American Theatre Wing Lighting Design Award), and the visual artists Paul Kaiser, Lesley Dill, Robert Longo, Bill Katz, Red Grooms and Gretchen Bender, among others.

His extensive regional theatre work includes productions at Arena Stage; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Shakespeare Theatre DC; Milwaukee Rep; Hartford Stage, Long Wharf Theatre; Goodman Theatre; The Guthrie; Mark Taper Forum; Westport Country Playhouse; Laguna Playhouse and the Berkley Rep, among many others. Dance collaborations with choreographers Larry Goldhuber and Heidi Latsky, (Worse Case Scenario-Bessie Award); Sean Curran; Molissa Fenely; Doug Varone (Orpheus and Euridice-Obie Award-Special Citation); Donna Uchizono; Alonzo King; Charlie Moulton; Arthur Aviles; Margo Sappington; Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Trisha Brown Dance Company.

In New York, his work has been seen on and off Broadway including productions at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theatre; The Signature Theatre; MCC; The Roundabout Theatre; Playwrights Horizons; Mostly Mozart Festival; BAM; the Joyce Theatre; the Lincoln Center Festival; Gotham Chamber Opera and David Copperfield’s Broadway debut Dreams and Nightmares. 

In addition, he has designed the lighting for many art exhibitions at museums around the country, including the Environmental Art Installation Red Grooms at Grand Central Station; at the Yale Art Gallery- Baule: African Art, Western Eyes and Love & Loss: American Portrait And Mourning Miniatures; To Know the Dark, among others; and The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-1950, the Whitney Museum of American Art.