Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021 - 11

In 1999, as part of the Prague
Quadrennial, I convened a debate
between Ralph Koltai, Josef Svoboda, and
Ming Cho Lee on the stage of the Prague
National Opera. I called it " The Three
Great Horsemen of the Scenographic
Apocalypse. " I was astonished to discover that these three great Titans had never
met each other. The event was completely sold out and people were standing to
hear them discuss. A table covered with a
white cloth was put in front of the opera's
red curtain, and Koltai was seated at one
end, Ming at the opposite, and Svoboda
in the middle next to me. The three had
headphones to hear the translations. The
night before, I spent time with each one
going through the questions I would ask
them, so that the event would have some
structure. However, when it came to it,
no one remembered the briefing, and
nor did the three communicate with each
other, and it almost became the greatest
comedy show on earth. Now these three
great horsemen are riding the Golden
Triga in the sky.

Linda Fisher

Costume Designer

Ming was on the Tony nominating committee the year I did Tuna Does Vegas, a
show with only two actors but something
like 30 very quick-change costumes. Later,
he told me that he and Betsy had roared
with laughter at the show and he had tried
to convince the committee to nominate
me but couldn't. He was such kind and
generous classic gentleman in addition
to being a brilliant teacher and designer.

Arnold Aronson

Professor of Theatre, Columbia University

In 2010, I began work on the book that
would become Ming Cho Lee: A Life in
Design. This " work " consisted of interviewing Ming about his life and each
of the more that 300 productions he
designed. Over the next three years, I
had the incredible privilege of meeting
with him regularly, usually for sessions
of about three hours each. We sat at
the dining table, I would turn on the recorder, mention the year or production
we were going to start with that day, and
Ming would be off and running, discussing each production in enormous detail.
We usually had photos or sketches (he
insisted that even his most beautiful renderings were sketches) to refer to, but his

Ming Cho Lee's last critique session at the Yale Design Showcase 2019, critiquing Riw Rakkulchon's design of
Twelfth Night for Yale Repertory Theatre. | Photo by Samuel Chan, courtesy of Riw Rakkulchon.

memory for detail was phenomenal.
Betsy, of course, was always in the
room or close by, filling in any blanks in
Ming's narrative and occasionally disputing a date or the details of an event,
which led to bit of bickering that clearly
had gone on lovingly for their entire marriage. Ming liked chocolate chip cookies
and there was always a box on the table.
I gained quite a bit of weight during those
years. Our sessions, however, would
usually begin with a discussion of both
theatre and politics. By this point, Ming
was not able to go to the theatre much,
if at all, so he would ask me for details
of anything I had seen. And we always
talked about the week's news and politics
(which always seemed dire at the time
but seem so benign in comparison to our
current situation). At a certain point, I
often had to steer the conversation back

to the discussion of his designs or risk
spending the whole afternoon on current
events. I also learned, early on, not to shut
off the recorder until I was out the door
and in the elevator. As I would be packing up to go, Ming seemed to remember
details he had forgotten, or ideas that
needed further elucidation, and some of
his most remarkable observations would
emerge during those minutes. Although I
was never a student in Ming's class, I felt
that I was receiving a three-year private
tutorial-though thankfully without having to submit a design for one of Ming's
famous critiques. One of my fondest
memories, however, is from 1989 during a design conference sponsored by
the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Joel
Rubin, who was then head of USITT's
International Liaison Committee, asked
Ming to represent the U.S., but also

WINTER 2021 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

| 11

Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2021