ThatвЂ™s why my Broadway career has never been very strong.вЂќ вЂњNext to dance, I enjoy designing opera and Shakespeare, which also take design away from the literal situation. There are no hours of dealing with props or cigarettes or where the ice box should go, as you must with a play. вЂњDance demands the purest kind of designing,вЂќ he told The Times in 1975, вЂњbecause youвЂ™re dealing with the abstract essence of a dramatic statement, which I express either in sculpture or painting. Lee thought a good designer should work in multiple forms, though he had a particular fondness for dance. He taught at Yale from 1969 to 2017, serving as chairman or co-chairman of the design department for much of that time, and many of his students went on to prominent careers in the field. LeeвЂ™s impact in theaters was matched by his impact in the classroom. Lee had woven together a variety of influences - his training in Chinese watercolor painting, for instance, and his knowledge of German opera - to вЂњforge a new American scenic vocabulary,вЂќ one characterized by a more vertical approach to stage space, a use of pipe work or wooden scaffolding, emblematic elements, collage, rough textures and new or unusual industrial materials. вЂњIn the 1960s and вЂ™70s Lee radically and almost single-handedly transformed the American approach to stage design,вЂќ Arnold Aronson, professor emeritus at Columbia UniversityвЂ™s School of the Arts and author of the 2014 book вЂњMing Cho Lee: A Life in Design,вЂќ said by email, вЂњparticularly through his work at the New York Shakespeare Festival, New York City Opera and Arena Stage in Washington.вЂќ We are so accustomed to curtains that welcome us by crawling halfway up the arch and then halting, with the emptiness above cut off by an artificial ceiling, that the curtainвЂ™s failure to stop midway is startling.вЂќ вЂњThe very fact that the AtkinsonвЂ™s curtain goes all the way up as the evening begins creates its own stir of excitement,вЂќ Walter Kerr wrote of the production in The New York Times, вЂњalmost before weвЂ™ve been able to take in the full, ravaged splendor of designer Ming Cho LeeвЂ™s pitted pillar of crystal. Lee, emeritus professor at the Yale School of Drama, was a Tony Award winner for the 1983 play вЂњK2,вЂќ about two climbers scaling that titular Himalayan peak, for which he put a huge, icy, Styrofoam-and-wood mountain onstage at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway. Ming Cho Lee, an innovative and influential designer who created sets for hundreds of plays, dance works and operas, and whose ideas continue to influence the field, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan.

Ming lee