Ming Cho Lee

Ming Cho Lee (born October 3, 1930, Shanghai, China) is a Chinese-born American theatrical set designer and a longtime professor at the Yale School of Drama.

Lee, whose father (Lee Tsu Fa) was a Yale University graduate (1918), moved to the United States in 1949 and attended Occidental College. He first worked on Broadway as a second assistant set designer to Jo Mielziner on The Most Happy Fella in 1956. Lee's first Broadway play as Scenic Designer was "The Moon Besieged" in 1962; he went on to design the sets for over 20 Broadway shows, including Mother Courage and Her Children, King Lear, The Glass Menagerie, The Shadow Box, and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. He has won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design, a Helen Hayes Award, and in 1983 he received a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design for K2. He has also designed sets for opera, ballet, and regional theatres such as Arena Stage, the Mark Taper Forum, and the Guthrie Theater.

He designed over 30 productions for Joseph Papp at The Public Theater, including the original Off-Broadway production of Hair .

Since 1969, Lee has taught at the Yale School of Drama, where he is currently co-chair of the Design Department.

He is on the Board of Directors for The Actors Center in New York, NY.

Lee was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1998, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in...
Read More