Set Designer Ming Cho Lee Dies at Age 90

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that set designer Ming Cho Lee has died at age 90.

Ming Cho Lee is one of the foremost theater designers of the past 50 years. He taught full-time at the Yale School of Drama for 48 years and served as chair or co-chair of the design department for 34 years. He is the recipient of the National Medal of the Arts. In addition to his three Henry Hewes Design Awards, he has won two Tony Awards, an Outer Critics Circle award, Drama Desk Awards, and the TCG Practitioner Award. He holds five honorary degrees, and is a member of the Theater Hall of Fame.

Lee has designed more than 300 shows worldwide, including Broadway and Off-Broadway, and dance and opera productions. His designs have been shown in retrospectives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and Yale School of Architecture. In 2014, TCG published "Ming Cho Lee: A Life in Design" featuring his work.

His work has been shown in a retrospective at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in Taiwan, and in China, and was also exhibited at the Yale School of Architecture from November 18, 2013 through February 1, 2014. The book Ming Cho Lee: A Life in Design, by Arnold Aronson, was published by Theatre Communications Group in the spring of 2014.

Ming Cho Lee served as a member of the Board of the New Forty Second Street, Inc., as well as that of the Alliance for the Development of Theatre Artists, Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, and many others. He is the former co-chair of the Design department of Yale School of Drama, and holds the Donald Oenslager Chair in Design.