Marquee DoyleTheater DesignResearch Paper

JOHN LEE BEATTY

John Lee Beatty is an extraordinary designer who cultivated the change of how to create

an environment for characters to perform. His vision towards the Broadway scenic design gave

birth to new avenues of innovation, and naturalism as well as realism to the end result to

formulate a concrete masterpiece. Beatty's journey towards being a designer was not easy.

Important people in his life always look down upon him in regards to become a designer

because designing was in a field in which people did not take seriously at the time.

The most important person in his life who had problems with him becoming a designer

was none other than his father. Betty's father, Shelton R.E. Lee, was a Dean of students at

Pomona College. His philosophy was to uphold the best possible opportunity for his child.

Beatty has been on the record saying, that discussing with his father about his ambitions to be a

designer was some of the hardest conversations he had to face in his life only because his

father wasn't a huge fan of the idea. Knowing this painful realization, when Betty started his

higher education he decided to go as an English major to satisfy his father's likes. Betty was

born April 4, 1948 in Palo Alto, California which is a small town located right outside of San

Francisco. Even though Beatty was born in Palo Alto, he grew up in a town called Claremont.

Not only did his father work in academics, but also his mother did as well. Betty's mother,

Caroline Dorothea was an English major at her native school, so to admire great literature and

writing Beatty's alternate idea of education was English. So when Beatty attended Brown

University he studied English alone with directing, writing and creating sceneries for college

productions. After Betty realize his potential in this type of field, he then decided to attend a

prestigious university in order to extend his education and his opportunities at becoming a

scenic designer. There was only one choice for him in which you really admired and wanted to

accomplish, and that was to go to Yale school of drama and study under the great Ming Cho

Lee. John Lee explains, "In the last year, we finally got a technical director, a design teacher. I

did scene painting, which I loved. Encouraged to go to the Yale School of Drama, and be trained

by the great scenic designer Ming Cho Lee was an honor and a blessing in which I will also be in

debt to." (Yale)

After graduating from Yale Beatty decided to move to New York City and take his talents

to a new level in the heart of Broadway. Beatty tried to get a job in regional theatre, but they

really wanted a designer with New York experience. They didn't want Beatty. So he arrived in

New York one September morning with his suitcase, and got a job as an assistant to the set

designer Douglas Schmidt and started painting scenery for Broadway shows. Beatty final

received an opportunity 1973 with a Broadway play called Veronica's Room. Veronica's Room

was a Broadway play that appeared in October 22, 1973. It actually ran until December 29,

1973 with over 75 total performances. Even though John Beatty was an assistant to the actual

head of design who was Douglas Schmidt, his ideas played a very significant part in the

complete design of the actual play. Douglas explains, “If it wasn't for John Beatty's innovative

ideas and enthusiasm towards creating an original piece this Broadway play wouldn't have

turned out as great as it actually did”. A year later, he began working for the old Circle

Repertory Company. Those jobs eventually led a scenic designing career on Broadway, which

his first Broadway show was Jules Feiffer's Knock Knock, in 1976. (The American Theatre)

When working on the actual set of Knock, Knock Beatty came to realize different things

about himself. He understood that his way of designing was irregular in which everyone else he

learn from and even worked with. The way that he design things as well as wanted to

incorporate environments to help characters express their performance in a Broadway play

wasn't something normal designers actually created. One thing that Betty loves about his work

he explains," is the irregularity of it". In that statement what he personally meant, was that

there was no certain blueprint to designing an actual extraordinary scenic design piece for

Broadway play. You can't just take one design from another and think that your creation is

complete. There always has to be something new brought to the table in order to shock the

world, and bring innovation and even learn on every design that you create. Beatty was

famously always said, that he doesn't know what his design will be from one performance to

the next. As a matter of fact, whenever he is commissioned to do a design he never looks at his

past work in order to get ideas. That type of method only generates redundancy in which

Beatty really hates. So when he is commissioned to actually doing a design, he thinks from

scratch. Oddly Beatty never thought that his workings were a masterpiece. He always thought

that his designs were designs that would fail a director's vision. He received this type of thinking

from his mentor Ming Cho Lee. Lee always expressed in his teachings that he made more flops

and design than success. He taught his students to not worry about successes in designing, but

to worry about expressing the concrete story in which a director wants to have. So as far as

Beatty, his normal thinking habits always allows a sense of failure to keep his humbleness.

(Yale)

Beatty was always interested into the twist and turns a production would take in order

to complete a great masterpiece. Beatty never believed in over designing a production. He

always quoted," when a designer looks like he hasn't done anything and the audience pays

attention more to the characters and not the background you will find that this method is the

best method because a designer vision fits around the story in elevating the meaning instead of

dominating the scene". It wasn't until February 7, 1980 when John Lee Beatty took design to

the next level by creating a design for a Broadway play called Talley’s Folly. It was then that

John Lee Beatty's creation and vision towards realism really took the world by storm and

demonstrating the simplicity of how designers work can coexist with a talented director’s

vision. From the structural design of the environment which took place on the outside, its

cohesive feel gives such an extraordinary complement to the actual story. The actual story was

a romantic comedy that expressed the times of 1944 in Lebanon, Missouri. This play follows the

characters Matt Friedman and Sally Talley as they once and for all settle for feelings for each

other. The act takes place on the boathouse in Missouri, on the Fourth of July. The play opens

as Matt directly addresses the audience telling them that the play would take 97 min. in hopes

to capture and relate a story in that amount of time. The play of course was written by Lanford

Wilson and premiered in the Brooks Atkinson Theater in New York City, New York. (American

Theatre)

Beatty's task was to create an outdoor setting that stimulated a rugged feel which

depicts the certain times after World War II. Beatty structures had the complement the actual

story and not take over the performance. So when doing so, he created this outdoor

environment of a boathouse in Missouri to where the play takes place. The way, Beatty design

the structure was somewhat of a rugged antique feel of the boathouse. The lines of the design

are very crooked and creepy. The space in some senses is enormous but in others is very small.

Towards the ceiling seems close in, but when you get to the back of the design space it seems

enormous allowing nature and the environment to come together and create cloudy viewings.

What really was amazing was how he incorporated the nature around the actual setting to

formulate a creepy yet romantic feeling for the two characters. This by far was a design that

gave John Lee Beatty his fame towards the production world. He received his first Tony award

for this design as well as many other awards complementing his originality. (John Lahr)

After receiving such high reviews towards his production design for Tally’s Foley, Beatty

wanted to challenge himself to creating another vision that will take designing to the next level.

Searching through projects in which he was presented he took on a project called Penn and

Teller, which was done in 1987. Penn and Teller was design that Beatty famously says was his

most difficult design of all time. He quotes," it was a very difficult design because of the

mystifying that had to be created in order to express the story to its full potential". Even though

Betty didn’t receive a lot of praise towards this actual Broadway play, it did open up more

innovation towards him into how he can really complete things. To Beatty, Penn and Teller was

a mystifying and difficult job that not too many people can actually complete. In some senses to

the most practical person this design was in most cases airheaded. When commenting about

this piece he explains, “This design is what you would call the associated thinking”. This

basically means that you have to think outside the box in order to understand his vision on this

creation. (John Lahr)

In conclusion, John Lee Beatty's impact on the design world gave new meaning to the

term realism. He opened up the notion that a designer doesn't have to really focus more on

wowing the crowd, but really have to focus on complementing the story so that people in the

audience can enjoy a fine performance. Beatty has won countless number awards including

numerous winnings of the Outstanding Desk Award as well as two Tony Awards on productions

from Talley’s Foley and the Twentieth Century. Beatty still lives in New York City today designing

and creating new fun and exciting ways to wow the crowd and productions on Broadway. He

will always be that kid from California who was told that he could never create imaginative

things to an extraordinary designer who’s the A-List of designers creating outstanding and

memorable productions on the legendary streets of Broadway. John Lee Beatty will not only be

a person of American scenic design but he also will be forever admired as an individual who is

becoming iconic as his mentor Ming Cho Lee.

Reference Page

1. "Land Great Designers," by John Lahr, The New Yorker, Nov. 24, 2008."

2. The Yale School of Drama Catalog. “John Lee Beatty. Innovator of Design.” The Yale School of Drama Catalog. Nov. 3, 2009

www. yale .edu/ drama /admissions/index.html

3. The American Theatre Wing. “John Lee Beatty” The American Theatre Wing. August 18, 2009http://americantheatrewing.org/biography/detail/john_lee_beatty