TCG to Publish Monograph on Set Designer Ming Cho Lee

NEW YORK, NY - Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is excited to announce its most ambitious publication to date: an elaborately illustrated hardbound monograph honoring theatrical design legend Ming Cho Lee, entitled Ming Cho Lee: A Life in Design, written by Arnold Aronson.

Declared "the dean of American set designers" by the New York Times, Ming Cho Lee is considered to be the most influential stage designer in the U.S. in the past 50 years, and one of the most respected designers in the world. His work with theatre, opera and dance companies in the 1960s, particularly the New York Shakespeare Festival, the New York City Opera and the Joffrey Ballet, transformed the very nature of the design in America and introduced a scenic vocabulary and spatial aesthetic that underlies scenographic styles to the present day.

Lavishly illustrated with over 500 images in both color and black and white, Ming Cho Lee: A Life in Design by Arnold Aronson chronicles Lee's career, from his early training as a watercolorist in China to his designs for over 300 productions and his esteemed 40-year career at the Yale School of Drama. Lee's work has been showcased at the New York Public Library and the Yale School of Architecture, and his honors include a Tony Award for best scenic design of a play, an Outer Critics Circle Award, three Drama Desk Awards, a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement and the National Medal of the Arts, the highest national award given in the arts, which is awarded by the president of the United States. For a closer look at Lee's career and images from the book, visit http://americantheatre.org/2014/09/designs-of-ming-cho-lee-honored-in-ming-cho-lee-a-life-in-design/.

Arnold Aronson is a professor of theatre at the Columbia University School of the Arts. He frequently writes about scenography and contemporary theatre, and his books include The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography, American Set Design, American Avant-Garde Theatre: A History, Looking into the Abyss: Essays on Scenography andThe Disappearing Stage: Reflections on the 2011 Prague Quadrennial, as well as the introductory essay for volume three of The Cambridge History of American Theatre. He served as general commissioner of the Prague Quadrennial in 2007.

For over 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 Member Theatres and Affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 13 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org.

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