Quoted & Matted

I am an excitable person…in whom feelings are much stronger as reason…Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go.

— Anais Nin


18mr:

Here’s a follow-up to yesterday’s Tony Award post. You haaaaave to watch Ming Cho Lee receive his special award for lifetime achievement.

Cutest speech ever.

Ming Cho Lee, who chaired or co-chaired the design department at the Yale School of Drama for 43 years, received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement at the 2013 Tony Awards on Sunday, June 9th.

The Shanghi-born Lee, 82, is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, the highest national award given in the arts. His extensive credits include work in opera, dance, and theater around the world.

From 1962 through 1973, he was the principal designer for Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. As an architectural consultant, Lee designed theater for Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre, the State University of New York at Purchase, and the University of Cincinnati.

His first Broadway gig was as technical assistant to the 1956 musical, “Happy Hunting.”His first Broadway credit as scenic designer was for 1958’s “The Infernal Machine.” Among his Broadway designs were for “Little Murders,” “The Shadow Box,” the musical “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and “K2,” for which he earned a Tony Award.

Lee’s work has been shown in two separate retrospectives at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and in Taipei, Shanghai and Ningbo.

Hat tip: Asiance Magazine.