Neil Peter Jampolis, Designer for Theatre, Opera, and Dance, Dies at 76Neil Peter Jampolis, professor emeritus in the theatre department at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, and an accomplished lighting, scenic, and costume designer for the stage, died December 15 in Los Angeles. The cause of death was leukemia. He was 76. Jampolis, who was born March 14, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York and attended high school there, taught at UCLA for 26 years. The rare designer, who worked in three disciplines, had more than three dozen Broadway credits, including Orpheus Descending (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the long-running revue, Black and Blue, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (starring Lily Tomlin) and The Innocents (starring Claire Bloom and featuring a young Sarah Jessica Parker). Jampolis was nominated for four Tony Awards, all in the category of lighting design, including Orpheus Descending (designed with Paul Pyant), Black and Blue, and The Innocents, winning for the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Sherlock Holmes. He was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards, again for lighting, for Black and Blue and Sherlock Holmes, winning for the latter. He also received a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Off-Broadway and elsewhere, Jampolis designed scenery and lighting for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Forever Plaid; I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; and more than 30 others. His opera productions, including those he directed, were seen at the Metropolitan Opera, Washington National Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and La Scala. He had served, since 1976, as the principal designer for the modern dance company Pilobolus and created works for numerous major ballet companies, including the San Francisco Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, and the French Ballet of Nancy. Jampolis' wife, the late Jane Reisman, was a Tony Award-nominated lighting designer who taught at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. The couple often collaborated as a design team, for example on Black and Blue and Forever Plaid. Jampolis will be cremated and his ashes will be scattered in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he and Reisman shared a summer home. There are no survivors. 
|
