Beowulf Boritt is a New York City-based scenic designer for theater. He is known for his scenic design for the play '' Act One'', which earned him the 2014

Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in a Play Tony Award for Best Scenic Design in a Play is an award for outstanding set design of a play. The award was first presented in 1960 after the category of Best Scenic Design was divided into Scenic Design in a Play and Scenic Design in a Musical w ...

Early life

Boritt was born to

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

scholar

Gabor Boritt Gabor S. Boritt (born 1940 in Budapest, Hungary) is an American historian. He was the Robert Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. Born and raised in Hungary, he participated as a t ...

and his wife, Elizabeth Boritt, an aspiring opera singer. Gabor Boritt fled Hungary for South Dakota after the failure of the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hunga ...

. They reside in

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Gettysburg (; non-locally ) is a borough and the county seat of Adams County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg (1863) and President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address are named for this town. Gettysburg is home to th ...

. Boritt has two brothers,

Jake Boritt Jake Boritt is an American documentary filmmaker and producer. Biography Boritt was a producer on Rory Kennedy's Moxie-Firecracker production "The Homestead Strike", part of the Emmy winning History Channel series "10 Days That Changed Ameri ...

who is a film producer and Daniel Boritt who is a biologist specializing in birds. Boritt cites his grandmother Anita Marie Wilson Norseen Hooker as a major inspiration for designing sets, as she was an artist and scenic designer at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

but was told that it was not appropriate for a woman to do in the 1930s. "She encouraged me artistically to express myself and bought me my first set of oil paints. My parents encouraged me, yes, but my grandmother was the big influence." Boritt went on to receive his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

where he pursued a degree in literature, not believing he could make it in scenic design:

I honestly don't think I meant to become a professional designer. I'm a little disingenuous for saying that, but I don't think I thought it was possible. I don't know if there was ever a moment where I said I'm going to pursue this. I thought I might become a college professor and teach set design somewhere. To do that I needed a master's degree. I started designing around the city a little bit while I was in graduate school and one thing led to another and I had several lucky breaks and started building a career.

Then, he received his M.F.A. from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

Tisch School of the Arts The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University. Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...

program for design for stage and film. He is married to actress Mimi Bilinski.

Career

After meeting Boritt at NYU,

Hal Prince Harold Smith Prince (born Harold Smith; January 30, 1928 – July 31, 2019), commonly known as Hal Prince, was an American theatre director and producer known for his work in musical theatre. One of the foremost figures in 20th century America ...

asked him to design Daisy Prince's production of ''

The Last Five Years ''The Last Five Years'' is a musical written by Jason Robert Brown. It premiered at Chicago's Northlight Theatre in 2001 and was then produced Off-Broadway in March 2002. Since then it has had numerous productions both in the United States an ...

'' and later Prince's production '' Paradise Found''. Soon after, designing ''

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ''The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee'' is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by William Finn, based on a book by Rachel Sheinkin, conceived by Rebecca Feldman with additional material by Jay Reiss. The show centers on a fictional spe ...

'' launched his career on Broadway. Since then, he has designed over 20 Broadway shows, including his

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...

-winning ''Act One'' and -nominated '' The Scottsboro Boys''. In 2007, he was awarded the

Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

for sustained excellence in scenic design. He has also won the

AUDELCO AUDELCO, the Audience Development Committee, Inc., was established in 1973 by Vivian Robinson to honor excellence in African American theatre in New York City. AUDELCO presents the Vivian Robinson/AUDELCO Recognition Awards (also known as Viv awa ...

Award for set design in 2002 and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design. In 2015, Boritt designed the set for the

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

debut of

Helen Edmundson Helen Edmundson (born 1964) is a British playwright, screenwriter and producer. She has won awards and critical acclaim both for her original writing and for her adaptations of various literary classics for the stage and screen. Early life Edm ...

's play ''Thérèse Raquin''. In 2016, Boritt was featured in a

Microsoft Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

commercial that aired nationwide. In 2016, he designed Chinese and American cooperated Broadway shows '

Jay Chou Jay Chou ( zh, t=周杰倫, s=周杰伦, poj=Chiu Kia̍t-lûn, p=Zhōu Jiélún, first=t, w=Chou Chieh-lun; born January 18, 1979) is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, record producer, rapper, actor, and television personality. Dubbed the " King ...

's The Secret'. In 2017, he was featured in a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' article about his renovation of his home using his scenic design expertise.

Awards and nominations

Other

In 2022 Boritt founded The 1/52 Project, a financial grant program to encourage early career designers from historically excluded groups.

References

External links

Beowulf Boritt IBDB
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boritt, Beowulf Living people Tony Award winners Year of birth missing (living people)