Design for Stage and Film
 | Robert Wierzel |
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 and opera on stages throughout the country and abroad. This summer Robert worked on Carmen, directed by Anne Bogart, and Medea, directed by Michael Barker-Caven, both for Glimmerglass Festival. He is currently in pre-production for the United States touring version of Fela! a musical directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, opening in the fall of 2011. Robert is also in pre-production with the Streb Extreme Action Company on a new theatre piece called Kiss The Air, which will première at the Park Avenue Armory in December 2011.
Furthermore, Robert has collaborated on productions with the opera companies of Paris (Garnier); Tokyo; Seattle; Toronto; Boston (Lyric Opera); San Diego; San Francisco; Houston; Washington; Virginia; Chicago (Lyric Opera & Opera Theatre); Montreal; Vancouver; Minnesota; Florida; Portland; San Diego; Wolf Trap; Omaha; Glimmerglass and New York City Opera among others. Numerous collaborations (26 years) with choreographer Bill T. Jones (Walking The Line - Musée du Louvre) and with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (Story/Time; Fondly Do We Hope…,) along with productions at the Lyon Opera Ballet and Berlin Opera Ballet). Mr. Wierzel has also 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 A.C.T.-San Francisco; Arena Stage; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Shakespeare Theatre DC; Hartford Stage; Long Wharf Theatre; Goodman Theatre; The Guthrie; Westport Country Playhouse; Geva Theatre; Mark Taper Forum and the Berkley Rep among many others. Dance collaborations with choreographers Larry Goldhuber and Heidi Latsky, (Worse Case Scenario-Bessie Award); Doug Varone (Orpheus and Euridice-Obie Award-Special Citation); Sean Curran; Molissa Fenely; 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, at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
