Biography

Heather Carson has designed lighting in the US and internationally for over 200 productions in theatre, opera, dance, concert and video primarily in New York theatre and European avant-garde opera. Highlights include twenty years with Richard Foreman; 15 years with Elizabeth Streb Ringside; Idiot Savant starring Willem Dafoe at The Public Theater in New York; a 2 1/2 year eight play History Cycle (Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1&2, Henry V, Henry VI Parts 1,2 &3 and Richard III) for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and The West End which won the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Revival and Best Performance, was named “Production of the Decade” by The Guardian, and for which she received the 2008 Falstaff Award; and La Fanciulla del West for Opera Malmö in Sweden.  She has been head of the lighting programs at Penn State and Cal Arts and has taught at NYU, Smith College, Bard College, Sci-Arc, UCSD and UCLA. She is a recipient of the 1999 Rome Prize, a 1997 Skowhegan Art Program Fellowship, a 1998 and 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Artists Fellowship in Architecture/Environmental Structures, a 1999 Graham Foundation Grant, a 2006 Durfee Foundation Grant and a 2011 City of Los Angeles (COLA) Individual Artist Fellowship. Born in 1960 and raised in L.A., she spent 25 years in New York and now lives and works in Los Angeles.