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Lights, camera, teach

Professor's stage designs garner national attention

By Chris Edwards
Finkelstein photographs by Casey Templeton ('06)
Set photographs courtesy of Richard Finkelstein
Condensed from the article in Fall 2007 Madison

Richard Finkelstein

The internationally renowned Richard Finkelstein will soon bring his formidable talent and skills to bear on the stages of the future Performing Arts Center, now under construction across from the JMU Quad.

Richard Finkelstein, scion of a Chicago theatrical family, got his first stage role at 3. Cast as a small boy destined to become a cantor, he's been told he sang well ... until dress rehearsal when the lights first came on. After the illumined stage wowed him into total muteness, this internationally acclaimed set and lighting designer recalls, "They fired me and hired my 5-year-old brother. It was an early sign of my calling."

He's part of the 'new' faculty," says Tom Arthur, Finkelstein's colleague in the JMU School of Theatre and Dance -- referring to those who make waves far beyond Harrisonburg. Yet the recently retired Arthur dubs Finkelstein, who has taught scene and lighting design at JMU for five years, "a teacher down to his toes."

One evening last spring, senior Ben Nicholson ('07) and six classmates/assistants painted flat boards for the house about to rise above Madison's Latimer-Shaeffer proscenium for Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

This English major from Chantilly had found his calling in Finkelstein's set design class. After assisting him in fall 2006 with sets for The Laramie Project and Sweetest Swing in Baseball, Nicholson created his own through an independent study.

Hundreds of 1940's-era houses photographed by Finkelstein -- whose photography has also gained prominent recognition -- gave Nicholson a resource for designing the home where Miller's postwar tragedy unfolds.

As the crew painted realistic Styrofoam cornices, cut by Finkelstein with a hot wire, the professor brought the student good news: The Barter Theatre, where Finkelstein has worked, was offering Nicholson an internship. For young people seeking theater careers, Finkelstein calls design "where it's at. We live in such a visual world that people with skills like Ben's will get 100-percent employment."

Richard Finkelstein with Ben Nicholson ('07)

Set design and theater lighting professor Richard Finkelstein discusses paints and internships with Ben Nicholson ('07), who landed an internship with The Barter Theatre.

An award-winning educator and designer

At the University of Colorado, Finkelstein was named state Higher Education Teacher of the Year for the area of theater. Five former students -- from four different schools -- worked in the main national tour of The Lion King. Another took charge of flight automation for Broadway's Mary Poppins, while four from JMU have worked in productions of Orphan Train.

Finkelstein's designs for JMU productions of Medea (2003) and Hamlet Variations (2004) were selected for exhibition in the prestigious Prague Quadrennial in June 2007. His Hamlet set also appeared at Toronto's World Stage Design Expo and became the cover for Charles McGaw's drama text Acting is Believing.

Finkelstein set out to tangibly depict a tectonic clash of cultures in which all is revealed and all is obscured in his set design for JMU's 2003 production of Medea

Finkelstein set out to tangibly depict a "tectonic clash of cultures in which all is revealed and all is obscured" in his set design for JMU's 2003 production of Medea.

That play grew from director Arthur assigning students to write impressionistic, melancholy Dane-based scripts, and Washington, D.C.'s, Old Post Office building was the inspirations for Finkelstein's set. "This is the roof of the old post office turned sideways," he explains as he rotates a photo of his airy, trapezoidal design. The building reminded him of vintage train stations -- settings one student suggested because "Shakespeare finds energy where people are thrust together."

Collaborating with then-student Crystal Munson ('05), Finkelstein recalls, "We just sat here and played with images in Photoshop doing amazing things. Crystal thinks she came up with the magic formula, and I think I did. "I told Tom, you'll hate this;" [but] he said, "I love it."

Finkelstein's lighting -- fiery reds, deep blues -- shifted moods. Munson recently did designs for actor/director Leonard Nimoy.

Having earned an M.F.A. from Carnegie-Mellon University, Finkelstein says, "I never learned from traditional sources. I learned new things no one knew yet." He's worked with luminaries including choreographer Pat Birch, actor Jack Gilford and -- for one day during his college years -- actress Lillian Gish. "She was so nice," he recalls.

He has designed Web sites, published an online theater review journal and ventured into film for the 1997 Tale of Cinderella after creating its sets in his frequent venue, the New York State Theatre Institute. Many of his designs are posted at www.rfdesigns.org.

Finkelstein collaborated with then-student Crystal Munson ('05) for the set design of the JMU production Hamlet Variations.

Finkelstein collaborated with then-student Crystal Munson ('05) for the set design of the JMU production Hamlet Variations.

A passion for history and truth

In 2006, Finkelstein became official photographer for the quadrennial USA International Ballet Competition. Though pleased to find his photos in the New York Times and international dance publications, he seemed more delighted to have met veterans of the Ballets Russes while serving as the photographer at their historic 2000 reunion: Performers in their 90s, still fervent in rivalries and still dancing. He's similarly fascinated with the heartland atmosphere of Branson, Mo., where he designs sets for comedian Yakov Smirnoff.

Finkelstein conveys zest for puzzles and historic trivia challenges -- such as locating a typewriter for the 1920s-era Thoroughly Modern Millie after students mistakenly produced an old electric.

He queries a visitor, "Who was the bestselling author of all time?" (Hint: "a woman in England" though not J.K. Rowling, not yet anyway.) The late Agatha Christie's estate tapped Finkelstein to design sets for the first staging of her mystery, Ordeal by Innocence, in February 2007 at the NYSTI.
Finkelstein says his set design for Laramie shows his passion for history.

Finkelstein says his set design for Laramie shows his passion for history.

Finkelstein's passion for history extends far deeper. He calls stage and film "part of the telling of truth" and cites Laramie, a set he designed for productions at both Colorado and JMU, and playwright/actress Naava Piatka's Better Don't Talk! "It's amazing how quickly history can be gone forever."

The Orphan Train assignment prompted Finkelstein to research that migration of homeless urban American children. For Piatka's tribute to her mother, Chayela Rosenthal, a Holocaust-survivor and actress, he placed Piatka on a raft among old portraits and multilingual papers. He'd selected and enlarged those onto scrim after photographing, then selecting from among 997 artifacts Rosenthal had stored in boxes. Following the 2006 NYSTI debut of Better Don't Talk!, the play's 2007 performance at JMU sold out.

Finkelstein designed the set for the off-Broadway play, Orphan Train.

Finkelstein designed the set for the off-Broadway play, Orphan Train, which premiered at the Theatre at St. Clemens in 2005.

Finkelstein discovered JMU when nephew Ben Finkelstein ('97), a founder of WXJM's MACRoCK festival, attended. Not surprisingly -- given his own Renaissance-man portfolio -- Richard Finkelstein discourages narrow specialization. Theater majors, he insists, should not only learn, but develop enthusiasm for all aspects of production: scripts, acting, directing, sound, costumes, sets and lights.

He adds, "You must know what you want to say." He advises against approaching any production as "just entertainment." Successful theater -- including comedy -- requires "making some sort of commentary. It makes you feel, 'I know these people; they're my family.'"

Download the PDFs for the full version of this feature and all of Fall 2007 Madison. "Lights, camera, teach" begins on Page 48.
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