Wendall K. Harrington

Wendall Keehn Harrington is an American theatrical projection designer and head of projection design at Yale School of Drama,[1] sometimes referred to as 'The Queen of Projections’.[2][3] She has been considered the nation's leading projection designer for more than three decades.

Credits include over 35 Broadway shows, and numerous awards for her designs.

"In many ways, the modern era of projections on Broadway — and, by extension, in the rest of the theatre — began with Wendall K. Harrington, who designed a number of productions that proved to be technological and aesthetic milestones... It was Harrington's work on the 1992 musical The Who's Tommy that arguably set the stage for the modern projections era."[4]

Considered the ‘godmother’ of modern theater projection in New York, many of her former assistants have gone on to Broadway careers including Zachary Borovay (Rock of Ages), Sage Carter (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), Michael Clark (Jersey Boys) and Elaine J. McCarthy (Wicked) as well as Hope Hall who went on to serve as the Principal Presidential Videographer and Archive Lead for the Office of Digital Strategy for President Barack Obama.[5][6]

She currently lives in New York City.

Early life and education

Harrington was born and raised in Queens, NY. In the 1960s she attended Hunter College, studied at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as a freshman and studied Art history with Leo Steinberg. She began her career apprenticing as a filmmaker on a number of experimental films before transitioning into advertising at Esquire Magazine, and then projection design in 1978.[5]

Design career

Harrington began her career as a projections designer on Broadway's 1979 production of They're Playing Our Song directed by Robert Moore and starring Robert Klein and Lucie Arnaz. That same year, she also designed Broadway's The Elephant Man, and the musical I Remember Mama. Throughout the years, she continued to serve as projection designer for shows, both on and off-Broadway and nationwide, notably The Will Rogers Follies, Disney's Beauty And The Beast, Company (1995 Rvival), Paul Simon's The Capeman, The Music Man, Children of a Lesser God, The Glass Menagerie, The Human Comedy, The Heidi Chronicles, Into the Woods, A Christmas Carol.[7] and Grey Gardens.

Harrington also designed Lincoln Center's productions of Four Baboons Adoring the Sun, Racing Demon and Hapgood. In 1983, she began designing for opera shows worldwide, such as The Photographer composed by Philip Glass at the (Brooklyn Academy of Music), The Magic Flute (Florence), Orfeo ed Euridice (Vienna and Zurich), and Benjamin Britten's Chamber opera The Turn of the Screw (Copenhagen), the Minnesota Opera's The Grapes of Wrath and the Metropolitan Opera's production of the opera Werther, by Jules Massenet.

In 1995, she began designing projections for ballet, notably the American Ballet Theatre's Othello,[8] the San Francisco Ballet production of The Nutcracker,[9] Alexei Ratmansky's Anna Karenina for the Mariinsky Ballet[10] and the New York City Ballet's production of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition[11]

Harrington continued to expand her projections designing experience on various concerts and tours, including The Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, Simon & Garfunkel's Old Friends Tour, two of Chris Rock's comedy tours (Blind Ambition and No Excuses), and John Fogerty's Deja Vu Tour.[12] She also devoted her time designing projections for special events, such as Esquire magazine's 50th Anniversary party. She designed player introductions for The New York Knicks, New York Liberty, and New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden, as well as the 2000 All-Star halftime show.

Other works

In 1978 she founded Luminous! Productions, Inc. where for six years she produced and directed multi-image and video projects for numerous corporate clients. The Multi-Image Murders and Fifty Who Made the Difference won several awards, including Gold Awards from IFPA, The Chicago Film Festival and the U.S. Industrial Film Festival. From 1988-1990, she served as a producer for a variety of Whittle Communications’ documentaries. Her work in the multi-image/video field includes the 1991 Words on Fire. She produced this half-hour program for PBS affiliate KTCA and Alive from Off Center.

Harrington was also responsible for the re-design and re-launch of Esquire magazine in 1986.[13] As design director for Esquire, she conceived and edited Randy Shiltsís’ My Life on the AIDS Tour, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award and published in Best American Essays of 1990.

Harrington sits on the American Theatre Wing's Tony Award Nominating Committee.[14]

Academic career

Harrington began her academic career in 1995 giving seminars in Broadway master lighting classes, which she helped to create, in universities along America's northeastern region, notably New York University, Yale University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Long Island University. From 2005 to 2009, she served as lecturer on Projection for Performance at the Yale School of Drama's Design Department. In 2009 the co-chairs of the Design Department Ming Cho Lee and Stephen Strawbridge, announced that Wendall was to head the departments new projection concentration. The program began in the fall of 2010 and is one of the first graduate theatre training programs of its kind in the United States.[15]

Awards and nominations
Year Title Award Category Result
1993 The Who's Tommy Drama Desk Award Outstanding Set Design Won[16]
Outer Critics Circle Award Outstanding Projection Design Won
American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award Won[17]
1997 Steel Pier Drama Desk Award Outstanding Scenic Design of a Musical Nominated[18]
1998 Ragtime Drama Desk Award Outstanding Scenic Design of a Musical Nominated[18]
2013 Old Hats Drama Desk Award Outstanding Projection Design Nominated[18]

Other

Year Award Award
1995 Obie Award Sustained Excellence in Projections
2000 Michael Merrit Award For Excellence in Design and Collaboration[19]
2005 League of Professional Theater Women Ruth Morley Design Award[20]
2014 National Theatre Conference Person of the Year[21]
2015 USITT Distinguished Achievement Award in Education[22]
2019 USITT Distinguished Achievement Award in Digital Media[23]
2019 Knights of Illumination Awards Lifetime Recognition Award[24]

1980 Multi -Image Murders AMI International Gold Award for Best Concept and Script

1984 50 Who Made a Difference (IFPA Gold Award, The Gold Hugo from Chicago International Film Festival and First Place, Gold Camera from the US Industrial Film Festival)

References
  1. "Yale School of Drama - Wendall K. Harrington". Yale School of Drama.
  2. Karma, Edward, Wendall K. Harrington, Projectionist Extraordinaire, Faces a Third Dimension in Feathers, Playbill, 7 Dec 1998
  3. McElroy, Steven, From Afterthought to Essential, The New York Times, 18 May 2008
  4. Barbour, David, The Prevalence of Projections, American Theatre
  5. Gramza, Janet, Harrington Named Distinguished Achiever in Education USITT Sightlines Nov 2014
  6. Johnson, David, The Next Generation of Projection Design, Live Design Magazine, 1 May 2003
  7. Simon, John (12 December 1994), "Christmas Chestnut", New York, 27 (4)
  8. Kaufman, Sarah, ABT's 'Othello': The Story of the Moor, and Less, The Washington Post, 13 Jan 2007
  9. Downing, Margeret, "Houston Ballet's New The Nutcracker a Superb Production", Houston Press, November 27, 2016
  10. Macaulay, Alastair, Illicit Love and All Its Consequences, The New York Times, 12 Jul 2011
  11. Lampert-Greaux, Ellen, Pictures At An Exhibition: The Projections, Live Design, 22 Oct 2014
  12. MacMillian, Kyle, Projections bring "Rusalka" into digital era, The Denver Post, 9 Feb 2011
  13. New York Magazine. New York Media, LLC. Nov 10, 1986. p. 22. ISSN 0028-7369.
  14. David, Cara Joy, "The Tony Awards: Who Nominates? and When Do They Step Back?" The Huffington Post 21 Apr 2015
  15. Lampert-Gréaux, Ellen, Wendall K. Harrington Heads New Projection Major At Yale Live Design, 21 Oct 2009
  16. Cashill, Bob, "Rising Projections: Drama Desk's Newest Award"
  17. "American Theatre Wing - Recipient Wendall K Harrington". American Theatre Wing.
  18. League, The Broadway. "Wendall K. Harrington – Broadway Cast & Staff - IBDB". Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  19. "Previous Recipients «  The Michael Merritt Awards". Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  20. "The Ruth Morley Design Award - League of Professional Theatre Women". Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  21. "Person of the Year". Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  22. "Harrington Named Distinguished Achiever in Education". USITT Sightlines.
  23. "And the Winners are..." USITT News.
  24. "Winners of the 2019 KOI-USA Awards". Live Design.
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