Creative Designs

Designing Sustainably for Broadway with Donyale Werle at WSD2013

img-peter-and-the-starcatcher_142013765001Sat 14 Sept 14.30 – 16.00

The Willow Theatre

Donyale Werle, who started out as a painter, began to reexamine routine theatre practices after working for 13 months on the set for High Fidelity, a 2006 Broadway musical that closed after only 13 performances, she told American Theatre Magazine in Fall 2012.

Seeing her work trashed seemed a waste in more ways than one.

This session will focus on producing greener theatre. Donyale Werle has gained much acclaim for her use of salvaged materials in her sets and for her creative designs; she won her recent Tony for Peter and the Starcatcher, whose set was made entirely of recycled materials. Werle serves as pre-production co-chair for the Broadway Green Alliance.

Open to all.

Price: £6

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Donyale Werle to Speak at USITT 2013

USITT-DonyaleWerle-tonyTony Award-winning scenic designer Donyale Werle will speak at the upcoming USITT conference in Milwaukee on the subject of making Broadway more environmentally friendly. Werle, who is the pre-production co-chair of the Broadway Green Alliance, is committed to making theatre a “greener” practice, and uses salvaged materials in her sets and designs. Her set for Peter and the Starcatcher, for which she won a Tony, was made entirely of recycled materials. She will speak on Saturday, March 23.

Donyale Werle, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for scenic design and a leader in the Broadway Green Alliance, has been added to the already-stellar lineup of participants at the 2013 USITT Annual Conference & Stage Expo March 20-23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Ms. Werle’s session will focus on producing greener theatre. She has gained much acclaim for her use of salvaged materials in her sets and for her creative designs; she won her recent Tony for Peter and the Starcatcher, whose set was made entirely of recycled materials.

Werle serves as pre-production co-chair for the Broadway Green Alliance, which works for sustainable practices in the theatre community and is sponsoring her appearance at the USITT Conference on Saturday, March 23. BGA is a supporting member of USITT, the national association for backstage professionals, whose annual conference draws 5,000 people from the world of theatrical design and technology.

USITT considers Werle’s appearance a major coup for the conference, which has devoted resources to promoting greener theatre and production for several years. Last year USITT awarded a grant to Technical Director Paul Brunner, assisted by Scene Designer Michael Mehler, co-chairs of BGA’s Education Committee, to support their efforts to bring sustainable practices to educational theatre. They will be holding a separate seminar on “Reimagining Theatre with Green Ideals” at the upcoming conference and helped bring Werle in as a speaker.