John Wulp, Designer, Producer, Educator Dies at 90

Man of the theatre John Wulp died on November 27 in Rockport, Maine. He was 90 and had been residing in a hospice facility.

A true multi-hyphenate, Wulp was, at various times, a director, producer, playwright, designer, visual artist, and educator. On Broadway, he won a Tony Award for the 1977 revival of Dracula, designed by Edward Gorey and starring Frank Langella. He also produced (and designed scenery for) Crucifer of Blood (1978), a popular Sherlock Holmes pastiche, which gave a career boost to a young Glenn Close. His designs earned him a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk Award. Other, less successful Broadway efforts produced by him include Gorey Stories (1978), John Guare's Bosoms and Neglect (1979), and Passione, by Albert Innaurato (1980). Wulp also designed Bosoms and Neglect.

Off Broadway, Wulp produced Lydie Breeze (1982), another John Guare work. He co-wrote the book for the absurdist musical Red Eye of Love, first produced by the Living Theatre in 1961 and seen Off Broadway in 2014. He was also the author of the drama The Saintliness of Margery Kempe, first produced Off Broadway in 1957 and seen again last summer. His Off Broadway design credits include Frank Chin's The Chickencoop Chinaman (1972), The Old Glory by poet Robert Lowell (1976), Marco Polo Sings a Solo (by Guare) at the Public Theater (1977), and last summer's production of Margery Kempe. During the 1980s, he taught at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School, part of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Wulp moved to Vinalhaven, Maine -- located on one of the Fox Islands -- in 1992, where, among other things, he directed plays and musicals. In 1999, he and the singer-composer Cindy Bullens created a musical, Islands, about life in Vinalhaven. It toured throughout theatre and was the subject of a PBS documentary titled On this Island.

Wulp was a visual artist and poet; his work included a portfolio of photos of choreographer Merce Cunningham, which is now part of the New York Public Library's collection. His book of poems, Cormorant Time, was published in 2017.

Wulp apparently left no survivors. A memorial celebration will take place in Vinalhaven in summer 2019.