KEVIN RIGDON* – Artistic Director/VP IA
Kevin Rigdon is an award winning, scenic, lighting and costume designer for theatre. Audiences around the world have seen his work in venues that include Broadway, Off-Broadway, London’s West End, the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Theatre Royal Bath, Donmar Warehouse, and the Peter Hall Company, as well as theatres in Israel, Australia, and throughout the United States. He is the recipient of two Tony Award nominations, four Drama Desk Award nominations, two American Theatre Wing awards, and seven Joseph Jefferson Awards.
Mr. Rigdon is currently the Associate Director/Design of Houston’s Alley Theatre and Moores Professor at University of Houston. He is the Vice President for International Activities for USITT and is the Artistic Director of the United States exhibits for the Prague Quadrennial in 2019 and 2023.
Tatiana Vintu* – Head Curator/IA
Tatiana Vintu is a scenographer, creator and experimenter who strives to capture all the diversity of not tangible environments which influence the audience. She is focusing on using the latest trends and innovations in performance design practices. As an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts, she teaches and works in the area of Scenography and is the Director of the MFA in Theatre: Scenography Program, and Properties Design and Management. In addition to her work at Virginia Tech, she has designed professionally for many national and international theatre productions and films in Europe, United Sates, and Asia. Her designs were displayed at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ) and selected and published at the USITT Conference. She received her MFA in Theatre/Production Set Design from Tulane University (New Orleans, Louisiana). Studied Scenography at the National University of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts, (Bucharest, Romania); and completed her BFA in Scenography at the Academy of Music, Theatre and Visual Arts (Chisinau, Moldova)
Patrick Rizzotti* – Associate AD/Chair IA
Patrick Rizzotti (he/him) designs for live performance, television, and virtual/augmented/mixed reality. His process is highly collaborative and his work investigates how theatre can be made more immediate, urgent and immersive for an audience.
Broadway productions, and designs throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. TV credits include Art Direction for America’s Got Talent, The Dr. Oz Show, and The Today Show.
Special Recognitions include: receiving the USITT Scenic Design Award, winning the OPERA America Director-Designer Showcase, and a being a Lincoln Center Director’s Lab Alumni. M.F.A: Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. Memberships: Associated Designers of Canada, and USA 829.
Ian Garrett* – Digital Curator/IA
Ian Garrett is a designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. He is the director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University, where he is Graduate Program Director for Theatre and Performance Studies. He is also producer for Toasterlab, a mixed reality performance collective. He maintains a design practice focused on ecology, accessible technologies and scenography. Notable projects related to EcoScenography include the set and energy systems for Zata Omm’s Vox:Lumen at the Harbourfront Centre and Crimson Collective’s Ascension, a solar 150’ wide crane at Coachella. With Chantal Bilodeau, he co-directs the Climate Change Theatre Action. His writing includes Arts, the Environment, and Sustainability for Americans for the Arts; The Carbon Footprint of Theatrical Production in Readings in Performance and Ecology, and Theatre is No Place for a Plant in Landing Stages from the Ashden Directory. He serves on the Board of Directors for Associated Designers of Canada, was the Curator for the US for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, and co-chair for World Stage Design 2022 in Calgary.
www.sustainablepractice.org
Josafath Reynoso* – Curator/IA
Award winning scenic designer Josafath Reynoso was born in Mexico and was awarded the Gold Medal for Scenic Design at the World Stage Design 2017 in Taiwan for his production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The 2015 USITT Scenic Design Award; 2014 SETC Scenic Design Award for Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape; the 2013 BroadwayWorld Award for Our Country’s Good, and the SETC Ready-for-Work Award for The Threepenny Opera.
In the US, he has designed for Virginia Stage Company, Lexington Children’s Theatre, The Clarence Brown Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Warehouse Theatre, Triad Stage, Alice Jepson Theatre, Donald Bedell Performance Hall, and University of Tennessee Opera. In Mexico, he has designed for Teatro Salvador Novo, Foro Antonio Lopez Mancera, UNAM Facultad de Arquitectura, and Teatro Esperanza Iris. International credits include new productions for Teatro del Borde in Argentina, Escena 8 in Venezuela, and KCDC in Israel.
Soledad Sanchez Valdez* – Curator
Visual artist, designer, and educator. Born and raised in Lima, Peru, Soledad incorporates her professional experience in drawing, painting, and sculpture in designing for the stage. Scenic design for theatre includes Measure for Measure, Cabaret, Stop Kiss (USF Theatre 2), Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Twelfth Night (PSU Playhouse and Pavilion theatres).She is a close collaborator to Tampa City Ballet, having worked on the visual concept of the dance productions If I Cry, 7th Avenue and Ybor, and It’s been a Minute (HCC Mainstage Theatre, Ybor City Tampa, and Palladium Theatre, Saint Petersburg, FL). She is an active member of USITT and OISTAT.
Visiting Design Instructor University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance. MFA Penn State University.
– Curator
Christina Watanabe* (Lighting Designer, she/her/hers) – Curator
The Public, WP Theatre, EST, Primary Stages, Cherry Lane, 59E59, HERE, New Ohio, Theatre Row, Urban Stages, INTAR, Bushwick Starr, and Theatre for the New City to name a few. Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep, Virginia Stage Company, Charlottesville Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks, White Heron Theatre Company, Florida Rep, Bristol Valley Theatre. TV: Colin Quinn (co-design). USITT Gateway Mentor. Knights of Illumination winner. MFA: NYU Tisch. Member USA 829.
Alejandro Fajardo – Curator
Alejandro Fajardo is a Colombian artist based in New York City. He works primarily as a lighting designer for theater, dance, and live events, although he has worked as production designer for a variety of theatrical and immersive experience projects. After several years of working exclusively in the performing arts, Alejandro began expanding his work into other industries. He has designed and coordinated the lighting for a variety of New York Fashion Week shows and created environmental lighting and custom light art installations with several music festivals. Alejandro works as the Lighting Director for the Flamenco Festival, and Associate Lighting Director for Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, and has toured as Lighting Supervisor for Lucinda Childs, Wendy Whelan, and Maya Beiser’s The Day, Brian Brooks’ (Prelude, Wilderness, Company Rep), and Rashaun Silas & Charles Atlas’ Tesseract.
ig: @alejofaj
Susan Tsu *– Curator
Susan Tsu has worked from coast to coast at 44 theatres and opera companies, returning frequently to such companies as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Quantum Theatre and City Theatre. Memorable international productions include the award-winning hit musical Godspell, The Joy Luck Club- a benchmark collaboration between Chinese and American companies, and The Balcony- Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow. Her designs are represented in numerous books and publications and she has won many awards.
Curatorial efforts include Chief Curator- Innovative Costume of the 21st Century: The Next Generation exhibiting 250 costume designers from 50 nations at the State Historic Museum in Red Square, Moscow; Co Curator- Costume Design at the Turn of the Century: 1990-2015, Moscow; Artistic Director-From the Edge representing the United States at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial; and 2013 & 2016 USA photographic contributions to the World Costume Festival in Vigan, Philippines.
Rafael Jaen* (Ha-En) – Curator
Rafael Jaen is a professional costume designer, professor, and author. He has received multiple design accolades. He is the recipient of the Kennedy Center Golden Medallion for Excellence in Theatre Education, the Salem State University Life Achievement In The Arts Award, and the UMass Boston Manning Price for Excellence in Teaching. Mr. Jaen is the USITT’s VP for Communications and a past National KCACTF/DTM Chair. He is the author of SHOWCASE and Digital Costume Design and Collaboration by Routledge and editor of the USITT/Routledge Backstage Series. He is the Performing Arts Department Chair at UMass Boston.
Loyce L. Arthur, Associate Professor, (USA 829) –
Loyce L. Arthur has designed costumes for numerous productions including BLKS at the University of Iowa and Brokenville, Athens, Greece. She is the advisor of the Performing Arts and Social Justice Certificate and teaches the course, Art and Community Engagement. She is coordinator/lead designer for the Iowa City Caribbean- and Brazilian-style Carnival Community Engagement Project. Research awards led to study of Carnival in Cuba, Rio de Janeiro, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Jim Streeter* – Curator
JAMES E. STREETER currently serves as the Production Manager for the Frist Campus Center Film and Performance Theatre at Princeton University. He was previously the Resident Lighting Designer/ Master Electrician for Princeton University’s Program in Theater and Dance (now The Lewis Center for the Arts), where he designed the lighting for over 100 productions. He is also a scenic and visual effects designer. Currently, he is the VP for Exhibitions for USITT. He is a graduate of the Center for Media Arts and studied lighting design at The Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York City.
R. Scott Blackshire – Curator
R. Scott Blackshire serves as Curator, Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, McNay Art Museum, connecting communities with exhibitions steeped in social equity. Blackshire holds a PhD in Theatre/Arts Entrepreneurship and Non-Profit Management, College of Fine Arts, The University of Texas at Austin; Master of Music (Catholic University) and Bachelor of Music (IU Bloomington) in opera performance. Blackshire’s research supports higher education arts curricula, noting value-based entrepreneurial behaviors and deep personal practices bolster students’ professional efficacy.
* USITT member