In Memoriam: Ming Cho Lee

	Ming Cho Lee

Ming Cho Lee, a giant among American scenic designers and an educator of incalculable influence, died of natural causes on October 23. He was 90.

A native of Shanghai, China, Lee entered Occidental College in 1949, graduating in 1953. By 1956, he was assisting Jo Mielziner on the Ethel Merman musical Happy Hunting. He worked for Mielziner on two more productions, The Square Root of Wonderful (by Carson McCullers) and Look Homeward, Angel, a Pulitzer Prize winner based on the Thomas Wolfe novel, both in 1957, before making his debut with the Phoenix Theatre production of Jean Cocteau's Infernal Machine in 1958.

Lee continued assisting Mielziner and Boris Aronson, the two greatest Broadway scenic designers of their time, before striking out on his own in 1962. He designed many Broadway shows beginning with The Moon Besieged (1962) and including Mother Courage and Her Children (directed by Jerome Robbins and starring Anne Bancroft, 1963), Tennessee Williams' Slapstick Tragedy (1966), Jules Feiffer's Little Murders (1967), the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona (1971), Much Ado About Nothing (1972), For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide.... (1978), the Pulitzer-winning The Shadow Box (1977), two revivals of The Glass Menagerie (1975 and 1983); and Angel, a musical based on Look Homeward Angel (1978).

Several of these productions transferred to Broadway from The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, where he was principal designer from 1962 - 1973. It was there that Lee arguably had his greatest impact as a designer, especially with his highly architectural, multileveled designs for many Shakespeare plays, including Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and the previously mentioned Much Ado About Nothing, which was critically acclaimed and broadcast on national television.

The prolific designer also worked for many dance companies, including Martha Graham, American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet, Eliot Feld Ballet, Jose Limon, and Pacific Northwest Ballet as well as opera companies including Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and San Francisco Opera. His extensive work in resident theatres took in Arena Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Guthrie Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. His international work includes designs for Covent Garden, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Teatro Colon, Royal Danish Ballet, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Center, and Buhnen Graz.

Lee's design for the play K2, for which he created a towering Himalayan mountain out of styrofoam, is one of the most notable Broadway achievements of its time; he won a Tony Award for it in 1983. Other awards include a special lifetime achievement Tony; Drama Desk Awards for Invitation to a Beheading (1969), the musical Billy (1969), and K2; New York and Los Angeles Outer Critics Circle Awards; three honorary doctorates; membership in the Theatre Hall of Fame; the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture in New York; an Obie Award for sustained achievement, and a National Medal of Arts. In 2018, he was the first recipient of a new lifetime achievement award from the Henry Hewes Design Awards; it has subsequently been given out in his name.

Lee began teaching at Yale School of Drama in 1969, soon replacing set designer Donald Oenslager as department chair. During his nearly 50 years at Yale, he exerted enormous influence, nurturing several generations of designers with his candid opinions and original thinking. His annual "Clambake," put together in collaboration with his wife, Betsy, was a premier launching pad for young designers hoping to jump-start their careers.

James Bundy, design of Yale School of Drama and artistic director of Yale Repertory Theatre, said, in a letter to alumni, "It is difficult to overstate the breadth of Ming's achievements in the field and in nearly half a century of work at Yale ... Here at YSD, his commitment to a unified design curriculum, informed by world-class artistry, showed itself first in the brilliance of his own recruiting. He was directly responsible for bringing to our faculty such extraordinary artists and teachers as Jane Greenwood, Wendall Harrington, and Jennifer Tipton, as well as his beloved former students, including Jess Goldstein, Riccardo Hernández, Lee Savage, Ilona Somogyi, Stephen Strawbridge, and Michael Yeargan: Their talents and sense of collective mission amplified the impact of his leadership.

"Ming's own teaching was generous, inspiring, and often surprising. He was known to insist that students who were unregistered voters leave his class and not come back until they had registered. He opened his legendary Saturday class -- a life-changing rite of passage for designers -- to students in every YSD discipline, as well as from Yale College and the other graduate and professional schools. Passionate and self-aware in his subjectivity, Ming encouraged and engaged in real arguments, knew how to be personal without taking things personally, and was able to leaven almost any situation with a joke at his own expense. He knew that designing is also about thinking, reading, observing, critiquing, and collaborating, and he modelled good will and perseverance in his encouragement of all students to embrace the fullness of their roles, not only as artists, but also as citizens.

"Above all, Ming's former students -- including but not limited to what is certainly the largest cohort of accomplished designers ever taught by the same person -- are now themselves leaders of the profession and in conservatories around the world. He may now rest, but his work lives on in those of us who count ourselves fortunate to have known him, learned from him, and loved him."

Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, chair of the Henry Hewes Design Awards said in a statement, "With more than 300 designs for theatre, opera, and dance to his credit in spaces across the globe, Ming has long been an icon in a field known for its evanescence. Among his most lasting accomplishments, in addition to his long marriage and partnership with his wife, Betsy, and their beautiful family, are the countless students he mentored not only at Yale School of Drama but also through thousands of interactions with theatre artists with whom he worked and who always felt they were his students.

"As director Jon Jory told Arnold Aronson in a 2014 interview published in American Theatre, Ming was a 'remarkable dramaturg,' who engaged in a thorough, conversational process of exploring ideas about every proposed project. Jory continued, 'He disguised his classes as productions. I have no degree beyond high school, but I have a master's degree from the University of Ming'."

Lee is survived by his wife and children. Funeral arrangements will be private; plans will be made for a memorial when public gatherings are once again possible.