Lloyd Burlingame | Scenic, Lighting & Costume Designer
A native of Washington, D.C., in his youth Lloyd Burlingame devoured all the great art available in the capitol’s galleries, and studied art in preparation for becoming a professional stage designer. After graduating from The School of fine Arts of The Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in 1956, he came to New York and started a successful twenty year career designing scenery, lighting and costumes for forty-four Broadway plays and musicals. He also worked extensively in opera, regional theatre, and off-Broadway until the progressive loss of eyesight slowly forced him to retire from active designing. While a good deal of his eyesight still remained, he began to work on a bigger scale, creating large fabric collages and abstract paintings on paper and canvas. Simultaneously, he continued to serve as Master Teacher and Chair of the Design Department at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, (1971-1997). His students now design nationally and internationally and have received Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, and Obie Awards. They bring great joy to his life, also now made rich by partnering with his beloved Seeing Eye dogs, the third of whom, Al, is his current helper. Among other awards received, in 2012 Burlingame was elected by his peers to receive the prestigious Robert L. B. Tobin Award for "Sustained Excellence in Design for the Theatre.” He is also the recipient of two Fulbright Grants for study abroad as well as the Distinguished Teaching Medal of New York University. In recent years he has authored three published books: Two Seeing Eye Dogs Take Manhattan! A Love Story; Sets , Lights and Lunacy: A Stage Designer’s Adventures on Broadway and in Opera; and A Blessing Well disguised: A Blinded Artist’s Inner Journey out of the Dark
