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Richard V. Riddell is an American lighting designer. He graduated from Knox College with a
B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four ye ...
with honors in 1972. In 1978, he received his
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' ...
from Stanford University. He has had extensive teaching experience, working at such schools as the
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
,
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. He finally moved to Duke University, where he became vice president as well as university secretary and assistant to the president,
Richard H. Brodhead Richard Halleck Brodhead (born April 17, 1947) is an American scholar of 19th-century American literature and served as the ninth president of Duke University. Early life and education Brodhead was born April 17, 1947, in Dayton, Ohio. His family ...
. Riddell has also worked on numerous shows, including two
Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
shows: '' A Walk in the Woods'' and '' Big River''. He mostly designed lighting for the shows, but occasionally dabbled in scenic design. He is also published many articles in different magazines and newspapers such as ''American Theater'', ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
TheaterWeek ''TheaterWeek'' was a favorite magazine among theater artists and theater lovers. It covered Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, and educational theater with articles that included profiles of actors, directors, designers and behind-the-scenes looks ...
'', ''
The Drama Review ''TDR: The Drama Review'' is an academic journal focusing on performances in their social, economic, aesthetic, and political contexts. The journal covers dance, theatre, music, performance art, visual art, popular entertainment, media, sports, ...
'', ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'', ''Contemporary Designers'', and ''Theater Crafts''.


Teaching

Riddell taught in the theater department at the University of California, San Diego from 1978 to 1987. He then became the director of the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University until 1991. He moved to work at Duke in 1992 as the Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies, teaching classes such as "Arts and Contemporary Society", "Lighting Design for the Theater", and "Arts and Stage in the 20th Century". He also became the chairman of Duke's Department of Theater Studies. In 2007, it was announced that he would succeed Allison Haltom as Duke's vice president and secretary, as well as retain his position as assistant to the president.


Designs

He designed lights for such shows as '' The Philadelphia Story'' for
Missouri Repertory Theatre Kansas City Repertory Theatre is a professional resident theater company serving the Kansas City metropolitan area, and is the professional theater in residence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). The theatre has had four artistic d ...
; ''Eleanor: An American Love Story'' for
Ford's Theater Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in August 1863. The theater is infamous for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box ...
; ''Kudzu'' for Ford's Theater; ''
Otello ''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play '' Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. ...
'' for the
English National Opera English National Opera (ENO) is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in Englis ...
; ''
Private Lives ''Private Lives'' is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It concerns a divorced couple who, while honeymooning with their new spouses, discover that they are staying in adjacent rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetuall ...
'' for
Cleveland Play House Cleveland Play House (CPH) is a professional regional theater company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded in 1915 and built its own noted theater complex in 1927. Currently the company performs at the Allen Theatre in Playhouse Square whe ...
; ''
Queen of Spades The queen of spades (Q) is one of 52 playing cards in a standard deck: the queen of the suit of spades (). In Old Maid and several games of the Hearts family, it serves as a single, undesirable card in the deck. Roles by game In the Hearts fam ...
'' for the English National Opera; ''Steel'' for
American Repertory Theater The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to n ...
; ''
The Return of Ulysses ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'' ( SV 325, ''The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland'') is an opera consisting of a prologue and five acts (later revised to three), set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first p ...
'' for English National Opera; ''
The Flying Dutchman The ''Flying Dutchman'' ( nl, De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dut ...
'' for the
Santa Fe Opera Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newl ...
; ''A Walk in the Woods'' for
La Jolla Playhouse La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. History La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...
and for Broadway; '' The Day Room'' for American Repertory Theater; '' Akhnaten'' for the
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera (HGO) is an American opera company located in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1955 by German-born impresario Walter Herbert and three local Houstonians,Giesberg, Robert I., Carl Cunningham, and Alan Rich. ''Houston Grand Opera at ...
,
New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, du ...
, and English National Opera; ''Big River'' for La Jolla Playhouse and Broadway; ''Pieces of Eight'' for The Acting Company National Tour; '' The Tempest'' for the London and Stratford-Upon-Avon Royal Shakespeare Companies; ''
The Yellow Sound ''The Yellow Sound'' (in German, ''Der Gelbe Klang'') is an experimental theater piece originated by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. Created in 1909, the work was first published in ''The Blue Rider Almanac'' in 1912. ''The Yellow Sound'' wa ...
'' for Marymount Manhattan Theatre and
Alte Oper Alte Oper (Old Opera) is a concert hall in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany. It is located in the inner city, Innenstadt, within the banking district Bankenviertel. Today's Alte Oper was built in 1880 as the city's opera house, which was dest ...
; ''
Káťa Kabanová ''Káťa Kabanová'' (also known in various spellings including ''Katia'', ''Katja'', ''Katya'', and ''Kabanowa'') is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by the composer based on '' The Storm'', a play by Alexander ...
'' for Houston Grand Opera; ''
Our Town ''Our Town'' is a 1938 Metatheatre, metatheatrical Three act structure, three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Cor ...
'' for
Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gu ...
; and ''
Satyagraha Satyagraha ( sa, सत्याग्रह; ''satya'': "truth", ''āgraha'': "insistence" or "holding firmly to"), or "holding firmly to truth",' or "truth force", is a particular form of nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. Someone ...
'' for
De Nederlandse Opera The Dutch National Opera (DNO; formerly De Nederlandse Opera, now De Nationale Opera in Dutch) is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Dutch National Opera & Ballet housed in the Stopera building, a m ...
,
Brooklyn Academy of Music The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue in Brooklyn, New York City, known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performance. It presented its first performance in 1861 and began operations in its present location in ...
,
Lyric Opera of Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria ...
,
Seattle Opera Seattle Opera is an opera company based in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as its first general director until 1983. The company's season runs from August through late May, comprising five or six operas of e ...
, and
San Francisco Opera San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when h ...
. Additionally, he worked on the scene design for
Krapp's Last Tape ''Krapp's Last Tape'' is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening ...
'' for
Akademie der Künste The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...
, '' Akhnaten'', and ''
The Yellow Sound ''The Yellow Sound'' (in German, ''Der Gelbe Klang'') is an experimental theater piece originated by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky. Created in 1909, the work was first published in ''The Blue Rider Almanac'' in 1912. ''The Yellow Sound'' wa ...
''.


Awards

Riddell won the
Tony Award for Best Lighting Design This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for outstanding lighting design of a play or musical. The award was first presented in 1970. Since 2005, the category was divided into Lighting Design in a Play ...
,
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. In the 2009 ceremony, the category was sepa ...
, and Hewes Design Award for his work on ''Big River'' in 1985. Additionally, he received a Knox College Alumni Achievement Award in 1986.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riddell, Richard American lighting designers Knox College (Illinois) alumni Stanford University alumni University of California, San Diego faculty Harvard University faculty Duke University faculty Tony Award winners Drama Desk Award winners Living people Year of birth missing (living people)