Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2023 - 56

The Rising Star Award
The Rising Star Award, sponsored by LDI/Live Design, is given annually to a young professional at the beginning of their career.
The award recognizes excellence and artistic achievement in scenic, lighting, sound, projection design, or a convergence
of these design disciplines.
2023 Winner: Adam J. Thompson
Adam J. Thompson is a video and graphic
designer working in film, television, theatre,
and digital narratives. He has worked previously
as a creative director and a producer
and is the founding artistic director of The
Deconstructive Theatre Project, a nonprofit
multimedia storytelling laboratory that he
founded and led from 2006 to 2016. His
work as a multimedia performance director
and as a video and projection designer has
been produced and presented off-Broadway,
off off-Broadway, regionally, and on tour with
companies and at venues that include New
York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater,
Atlantic Theatre Company, Theatre for a New
Audience, La Mama, Ars Nova, HERE, The
Flea, American Theatre Wing, Terminal 5, Beth
Morrison Projects, National Sawdust, Boston
Lyric Opera, City Theatre, and Diversionary
Theatre. He is an alumni of The Public
Theater's Devised Theatre Working Group
and the HERE Artist Residency Program,
and has collaborated with the multimedia performance
collectives Big Art Group and The
Builders Association. Thompson is the recipient
of awards from the National Endowment
for the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural
Affairs, the Jerome Robbins Foundation, and
the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, among
others, and he was an invited exhibitor and
ambassador to the 2018 Beijing International
Design Biennial. He is a member of IATSE
USA Local 829.
" I'm very touched and honored to be chosen
as the recipient of this year's USITT and
LDI/Live Design Rising Star Award, " says
56 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | SPRING 2023
Thompson. " My work in video and projection
design seeks to fuse the narrative vocabularies
of gaming, cinema, and live performance and
to center dramaturgy in the design process. I
am excited by and aim to create video designs
that are rooted in liveness-designs that are
an active, responsive, and participatory stage
partner. "
" In the few years since he graduated from
the video and media design MFA program
(VMD) at CMU, Adam has built an extremely
diverse and prolific practice, ranging from
compelling design work off-Broadway and
across the country, with cutting edge directors
like Taylor Mac and Anne Bogart, to creating
detailed graphics and other visual elements for
streaming TV and film, " says Lawrence Shea,
on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon School of
Drama. " He is a dedicated artist and vital contributor
to the entertainment community, and
he demonstrates the impressive potential of
this relatively new career path of video and media
design. "
Justin Lucero, artistic director, El Paso
Opera, where Thompson designed Frida in
2022, says, " As an innovator, Adam is revolutionary.
He has a way of approaching process
that is refreshing and truly eye-opening. His
questions and curiosity and dreaming are intrinsic.
His ability (and desire) to thinking dramaturgically
and directorially is stimulating.
And his demeanor throughout is conducive to
work, while maintaining a mindset of social
awareness, equity, work-life balance, antiracist
beliefs, and collaborative spirit. "

Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2023

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