Brian MacDevitt

Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer and educator. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for his work on the 2002 Broadway revival of Into The Woods. He also won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Play three times and the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Musical once for The Book of Mormon in 2011.

Brian MacDevitt
Born	Long Island, New York
Education	Ward Melville High School
Alma mater	SUNY Purchase
Occupation	Lighting designer, professor
Years active	1984-present
Awards	Tony Award for Best Lighting Design Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Play Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Musical

Early life and education

A Long Island, New York, native, MacDevitt went to Ward Melville High School in East Setauket. Afterwards, he attended SUNY Purchase and graduated with a degree in Lighting Design from the Department of Design/Technology of the Division of Theatre Arts & Film.

Career

After graduation Brian spent a decade honing his craft with Off Broadway and other productions, and also developed a reputation as a teacher of design. He began teaching at Purchase as a visiting professor in 1986. He continued to balance his teaching career while breaking into Broadway in 1994 with What's Wrong With This Picture? Brian started to achieve notice with the Terrence McNally play Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1995. His success continued through the 1990s, and eventually culminated with a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in 2002 for the revival of Into the Woods. He won again in 2005 for The Pillowman, in 2007 for The Coast of Utopia, sharing the award with Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz (The three also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for Utopia.)

In fall of 2009, Brian began working as an Associate Professor of lighting design at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is still teaching.[1] He also designed the revival of Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, Broadway Bound and David Mamet's new play Race. In the 2010 season he designed A Behanding in Spokane, Fences, Armida at The Metropolitan Opera, and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. In 2011 he designed The Book of Mormon, Le comte Ory at The Metropolitan Opera and The House of Blue Leaves. Brian won the Tony in 2009 for his lighting of the play Joe Turner's Come and Gone and again in 2011, for the musical Book of Mormon.

He has had several students go on to also design Broadway productions, including Kenneth Posner, Jeff Croiter, Jason Lyons, and Jen Schriever.

Personal life

He has a large extended family, but by far his favorite first cousin once removed is Thomas MacDevitt.

Productions

Broadway

What's Wrong With This Picture? – 1994 Love! Valour! Compassion! – 1995 Master Class – 1995 Summer and Smoke – 1996 Sex and Longing – 1996 Present Laughter – 1996 Side Show – 1997 Proposals – 1997 The Diary of Anne Frank – 1997 Wait Until Dark – 1998 Night Must Fall – 1999 True West – 2000 The Ride Down Mt. Morgan – 2000 The Dinner Party – 2000 Judgment at Nuremberg – 2001 The Invention of Love – 2001 A Thousand Clowns – 2001 Major Barbara – 2001 Urinetown – 2001 The Women – 2001 Morning's at Seven – 2002 Into the Woods – 2002 Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune – 2002 Tartuffe – 2003

Nine – 2003 Long Day's Journey Into Night – 2003 The Retreat from Moscow – 2003 Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) – 2003 Fiddler on the Roof – 2004 Match – 2004 A Raisin in the Sun – 2004 'night, Mother – 2004 Pacific Overtures – 2004 Good Vibrations – 2005 The Pillowman – 2005 Sweet Charity – 2005 Absurd Person Singular – 2005 The Color Purple – 2005 The Wedding Singer – 2006 The Coast of Utopia (Part 1 - Voyage) – 2006 The Vertical Hour – 2006 Inherit the Wind – 2007 Cymbeline – 2007 A Catered Affair – 2008 13 – 2008 Speed-the-Plow – 2008 American Buffalo – 2008 You're Welcome America – 2009

Blithe Spirit – 2009 Joe Turner's Come and Gone – 2009 Accent on Youth – 2009 Brighton Beach Memoirs – 2009 Race – 2010 A Behanding in Spokane – 2010 Fences – 2010 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown – 2010 The Book of Mormon – 2011 The House of Blue Leaves – 2011 The Mountaintop – 2011 Chinglish – 2011 Death of a Salesman – 2012 Betrayal – 2013 A Raisin in the Sun – 2014 This Is Our Youth – 2014 A Delicate Balance – 2014 Fish in the Dark – 2015 Blackbird – 2016 The Front Page – 2016 Carousel – 2018 The Waverly Gallery – 2018 The Minutes – TBD Plaza Suite – TBD

Touring

• Gigi (1984-1985)
• Can-Can (1988-1989)
• Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1994-1996)
• Master Class (1996-1997)
• Urinetown (2003-2004)
• The Color Purple (2007-2010)
• The Book of Mormon Tours
  • Latter Day Tour (2012-2016)
  • Jumamosi Tour (2012-2020)

West End

• The Book of Mormon – 2021

Off-Broadway

Splendid Mummer – 1988 The Waves – 1990 Subfertile – 1990 Light Shining in Buckinghamshire – 1991 Fayebird – 1991 Shmulnik's Waltz – 1991 Man, Woman, Dinosaur – 1992 And – 1992 Candide – 1992 Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) – 1992 Three Hotels – 1993 Krapp's Last Tape – 1993 Later Life – 1993 The Maids – 1993 Family Secrets – 1993 First Lady Suite – 1993 The Illusion – 1994 The Mayors of Boy Town – 1994 The Arabian Nights – 1994 The Triumph of Love – 1994 Dog Opera – 1995 Northeast Local – 1995 Master Class – 1995 Blue Window – 1996

Overtime – 1996 Nude Nude Totally Nude – 1996 A Line Around the Block – 1996 By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful Sea – 1996 Henry V – 1996 God's Heart – 1997 Mizlansky Zilinsky or 'Schmucks' – 1998 Corpus Christi – 1998 The Ride Down Mt. Morgan – 1998 Captains Courageous – 1999 East is East – 1999 The Taming of the Shrew – 1999 The Exact Center of the Universe – 1999 An Experiment with an Air Pump – 1999 Fuddy Meers – 2000 The Time of the Cuckoo – 2000 Lydie Breeze (Parts 1 and 2) – 2000 Spinning Into Butter – 2000 Juno and the Paycock – 2000 Comic Potential – 2000 Resident Alien – 2001 Urinetown – 2001 Speaking in Tongues – 2001 Homebody/Kabul – 2001

Tuesdays with Morrie – 2002 Blue/Orange – 2002 Kimberly Akimbo – 2002 Lone Star Love – 2004 Dog Sees God – 2005 Family Secrets – 2006 The House in Town – 2006 Pig Farm – 2006 Our Leading Lady – 2007 The Receptionist – 2007 The Seagull – 2008 Hold On to Me Darling – 2016

The Metropolitan Opera

• Armida – 2010
• Le comte Opry – 2011

Awards and nominations

Tony Awards

Year	Category	Work	Result
2003	Best Lighting Design	Nine	Nominated
2004		Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2)	Nominated
		Fiddler on the Roof	Nominated
2005	Best Lighting Design in a Play	The Pillowman	Won
2006	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	The Color Purple	Nominated
2007	Best Lighting Design in a Play	Inherit The Wind	Nominated
		The Coast of Utopia (Part 1 - Voyage)	Won
2009		Joe Turner's Come and Gone	Won
2010		Fences	Nominated
2011	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	The Book of Mormon	Won
2012	Best Lighting Design in a Play	Death of a Salesman	Nominated
2018	Best Lighting Design in a Musical	Carousel	Nominated

Drama Desk Awards

Year	Category	Work	Result
1993	Outstanding Lighting Design	Three Hotels	Nominated
1995		Love! Valour! Compassion!	Nominated
2000		An Experiment with an Air Pump	Nominated
2001		The Invention of Love	Nominated
2004		Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2)	Nominated
2007		The Coast of Utopia (Part 1 - Voyage)	Won
2012		Death of a Salesman	Won
2018	Outstanding Lighting Design For a Musical	Carousel	Nominated

References

1. "Master Classes". Archived from the original on 2011-08-12. Retrieved 2009-05-26.

External links

• Brian MacDevitt at the Internet Broadway Database