R.I.P. Eugene Lee (1939 – 2023)

[scenicdesign71]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/arts/television/eugene-lee-dead.html

https://variety.com/2023/artisans/news/eugene-lee-dead-died-saturday-night-live-production-designer-1235516964/

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Ragtime, 1998

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Sweeney Todd, 1979

https://playbill.com/article/20-secrets-behind-the-scenic-designs-for-wicked-sweeney-todd-and-more

[scenicdesign71]

Interview with the late Mr. Lee's longtime associate Patrick Lynch about Lee's original Sweeney Todd set and its influence on the new Trinity Rep production, on which they'd both been working at the time of Lee's death:

https://playbill.com/article/before-eugene-lee-died-he-was-revisiting-his-tony-winning-sweeney-todd-set-design-in-rhode-island

Another forehead-slap moment: of course the governing scenic metaphor for an updated Sweeney, rather than an industrial-era factory, would become a 21st-century prison.  (Could there be any more literal referent, for Hal Prince's observation that Lee's original foundry setting "manufactures Sweeneys," than modern American carceral capitalism?).  I'd be very curious to see this production, currently running at the Rep's 250-seat Dowling Theater in Providence; but alas, it's only running for another week.