Brian MacDevitt

Brian MacDevitt
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

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.

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
2004		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
2007		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[]

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

External links[]

Brian MacDevitt at the Internet Broadway Database

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

[1]