Oliver Smith (designer)

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Oliver Smith (February 13, 1918 - January 23, 1994) was one of the most distinguished and prolific Tony Award-winning scenic designers in American theatre history.

Born in Waupun, Wisconsin, Smith attended Penn State, after which he moved to New York City and began to form friendships that blossomed into working relationships with such talents as Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Carson McCullers, and Agnes de Mille. His career was launched with his designs for Léonide Massine's ballet Saratoga in 1941 and de Mille's Rodeo in 1942.

Smith designed dozens of Broadway musicals, films (Guys and Dolls, The Band Wagon, Oklahoma!, Porgy and Bess), and operas (La Traviata). His association with the American Ballet Theatre began in 1944, when he collaborated with Robbins and Bernstein on Fancy Free, which served as the inspiration for On the Town. The following year, he became Co-Director of ABT with Lucia Chase, a position he held until 1980. He designed the sets for ABT's complete 1976 production of Swan Lake, starring Natalia Makarova, a production which was simulcast on PBS's Live from Lincoln Center both on PBS and NPR, and which introduced U.S. television audiences to Ms. Makarova for the first time. Unfortunately, because of restrictive policies at Lincoln Center regarding royalties, the production has never been released on VHS or DVD, though another production of the ballet starring Ms. Makarova has.

Smith also trained young designers for many years, serving on the faculty of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he taught master classes in scenic design.

Throughout his career, Smith was nominated for twenty-five Tony Awards, often multiple times in the same year, and won ten. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work on Guys and Dolls.

Smith died of emphysema in Brooklyn, New York.

[edit] Notable productions


[edit] References

  • Mikotowicz, Tom (1993). Oliver Smith: A Bio-Bibliography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313287090. 

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Scenic Design

David Folks (1947) · Horace Armistead (1948) · Jo Mielziner (1949) · Jo Mielziner (1950) · Boris Aronson (1951) · Jo Mielziner (1952) · Raoul Penè Du Bois (1953) · Peter Larkin (1954) · Oliver Messel (1955) · Peter Larkin (1956) · Oliver Smith (1957) · Oliver Smith (1958) · Donald Oenslager (1959) · Will Steven Armstrong (1962) · Sean Kenny (1963) · Oliver Smith (1964) · Oliver Smith (1965) · Howard Bay (1966) · Boris Aronson (1967) · Desmond Heeley (1968) · Boris Aronson (1969) · Jo Mielziner (1970) · Boris Aronson (1971) · Boris Aronson (1972) · Tony Walton (1973) · Eugene Lee / Franne Lee (1974) · Carl Toms (1975)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for a Musical

Oliver Smith (1960) · Oliver Smith (1961) · Michael Yeargan (2005) · David Gallo (2006) · Bob Crowley (2007)
v • d • e
Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for a Play

Howard Bay (1960) · Oliver Smith (1961) · Scott Pask (2005) · Bob Crowley (2006) · Bob Crowley / Scott Pask (2007)