Marie Anne Chiment
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Marie Anne Chiment has created sets and costumes for hundreds of productions across the United States for opera, theatre and dance. Ms. Chiment’s sets and costumes have graced the stages of Santa Fe Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Kennedy Center, Wolftrap Opera and Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre. She has designed national tours of Grease and Carousel, as well as the GLAMA award winning world premiere of Patience & Sarah for the Lincoln Center Festival.
Ms. Chiment received her Master of Fine Arts in 1981 from New York University’s highly regarded Tisch School of the Arts. As the year’s top graduate she received the coveted J.S. Seidman Award for design excellence. An invitation to join United Scenic Artists was followed by design engagements for the operetta Land Of Smiles at Lincoln Center, the film Grease Monkey (winner, “Focus On Film” award) as well as A Midsummer Night's Dream for The Arena Stage in Washington DC, starring Kathleen Turner and Avery Brooks.
Ms. Chiment’s early career found her crisscrossing the nation as she designed costumes for theatre companies including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Portland Stage Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, NYCs La Mama and Beckett Theatres and Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. While designing for The Rep in St. Louis, she met Colin Graham, the Artistic Director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and was invited to design sets and costumes for the premiere of his production Beauty And The Beast. The production was a resounding critical and commercial success and was to become the first of many premieres she would design for the acclaimed company.
Classically trained in voice and music, Ms. Chiment has a special affinity for creating sets and costumes for opera and dance. She has designed operas for Seattle Opera, Spoleto Festival, Minnesota Opera, Pennsylvania Opera Theatre, Kentucky Opera, Virginia Opera, Nashville Opera, Memphis Opera, Sarasota Opera and Opera Pacific.
In the world of dance she has created costumes for numerous pieces for New York Baroque Dance Company, Kathryn Posin Dance Company, Elizabeth Keen Dance Company, and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Ms. Chiment reconnected with her theatre roots when she returned to the West Coast to design The Winter's Tale and Rough Crossing for Oregon Shakespeare Festival. For 2005 season Ms. Chiment designed the fantasy costumes for Festival's The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. When OSF’s Associate Artistic Director Fontaine Syer moved east to assume the artistic directorship of Delaware Theatre Company, she invited Ms. Chiment to collaborate with her at DTC. Nominated for the Barrymore Award for Excellence in Theatre for her work at DTC, Ms. Chiment regularly designs sets and costumes for DTC productions.
In the world of academics Ms. Chiment has served as Associate Professor of Design at Webster University's Leigh Gerdine School of Fine Arts, Guest Lecturer at Cornell University, Guest Designer at Pennsylvania State University Festival of American Theatre and Guest Designer for the Santa Rosa Summer Repertory Theatre.
Ms. Chiment’s work has appeared on the covers of Entertainment Design, Theatre Crafts International and Stage Directions magazines and her designs have been featured in Opera News, The Costume Designer’s Handbook and Fabric Painting and Dyeing for the Stage. At the second annual Kevin Kline Awards Ms. Chiment was awarded Outstanding Costume Design for her designs for the world premiere of the musical ACE for the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.
