Donald Holder is an American

lighting designer In theatre, a lighting designer (or LD) works with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create the lighting, atmosphere, and time of day for the production in response to the text while keeping ...

in theatre, opera and dance based in New York. He was born in 1962. He has been nominated for fourteen

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 ...

s, winning the 1998

Tony Award for Best Lighting Design This is a list of winners and nominations for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for outstanding lighting design of a play or musical. The award was first presented in 1970. Since 2005, the category was divided into Lighting Design in a Play ...

as well as the

Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design is an annual award presented by Drama Desk in recognition of achievements in the theatre among Broadway, Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions. In the 2009 ceremony, the category was sepa ...

for ''

The Lion King ''The Lion King'' is a 1994 American animated musical drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 32nd Disney animated feature film and the fifth produced during the Disney Renaissance, it ...

''. He won a second Tony in 2008 for the revival of '' South Pacific''. His lighting design for ''Paradise Square'' has been nominated for a 2022 Tony Award for '' Best Lighting Design of a Musical''. Additional Broadway credits include: ''Tootsie, Anastasia, Kiss Me Kate, Fiddler on the Roof, The Bridges of Madison County, She Loves Me, The Cherry Orchard, The King and I,'' ''Big Fish,'' '' Annie (2012 Broadway revival)'', '' Golden Boy'', '' Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark'', ''

Arcadia Arcadia may refer to: Places Australia * Arcadia, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney * Arcadia, Queensland * Arcadia, Victoria Greece * Arcadia (region), a region in the central Peloponnese * Arcadia (regional unit), a modern administrative un ...

'', ''

The Motherfucker With The Hat ''The Motherfucker with the Hat'' (sometimes censored as ''The Motherf**ker with the Hat'' and ''The Mother with the Hat'') is a 2011 play by Stephen Adly Guirgis. The show is described as "a high-octane verbal cage match about love, fidelity and ...

'', '' Promises, Promises'', ''

Les Liaisons Dangereuses ''Les Liaisons dangereuses'' (; English: ''Dangerous Liaisons'') is a French epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782. It is the story of the Marquise de Merteuil and ...

'', ''

Radio Golf Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

'', ''

The Little Dog Laughed ''The Little Dog Laughed'' is a 2006 comedy play by Douglas Carter Beane. The four characters are an actor, Mitchell, his acerbic agent Diane, a hustler named Alex, and Alex's girlfriend Ellen. When Mitchell and Alex become involved in a physica ...

'', '' Movin' Out'', '' The Times They Are a-Changin''', ''

A Streetcar Named Desire ''A Streetcar Named Desire'' is a play written by Tennessee Williams and first performed on Broadway on December 3, 1947. The play dramatizes the experiences of Blanche DuBois, a former Southern belle who, after encountering a series of person ...

'', ''

Holiday A holiday is a day set aside by custom or by law on which normal activities, especially business or work including school, are suspended or reduced. Generally, holidays are intended to allow individuals to celebrate or commemorate an event or tra ...

'', ''

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...

'', and '' Prelude to a Kiss''. Off-Broadway credits include '' Jeffrey'' and ''

The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told '' The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told'' is a metaphysical/existentialist comedy written in 1998 by Paul Rudnick. Plot Original Production The play was originally produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on the Nikos Stage, opening on ...

''. He was the theatrical lighting designer for seasons one and two of the NBC-Universal television series '' Smash''. Holder studied forestry at the

University of Maine The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...

, where he graduated from in 1980. He also worked for the

Portland Stage Company Portland Stage Company is a professional LORT (League of Resident Theaters) theater company in the state of Maine. Founded as the Profile Theatre in 1974 as a touring theater company, the company made Portland a permanent home in 1976. In 1982, it ...

Maine Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and north ...

. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the

Yale School of Drama The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in e ...

and is a student of

Jennifer Tipton Jennifer Tipton (born September 11, 1937) is an award winning American lighting designer. She has designed for dance, theater, and opera. She is known for working on many productions of American Ballet Theatre. Life and career Tipton was born in ...

. He was the head of lighting design from 2006-2010 in the School of Theater at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

, and is currently Head of Lighting Design at the Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

*
Livedesign magazine article on HolderAuthorsden.com article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holder, Donald American lighting designers Tony Award winners Drama Desk Award winners University of Maine alumni Yale School of Drama alumni Living people Year of birth missing (living people)