Every designer starts somewhere unglamorous. I started in a high-school scene shop in Utah, building flats and platforms for the next show. Decades later I'd be designing world's-fair ceremonies and Las Vegas residencies — but the thing I was learning in that shop, how to make an idea stand up safely and look effortless, is the same thing I do now, just bigger.
This is the short version of how a theatre kid from St. George ended up being one of the people a production calls when a vision has to become a real, physical place.
Learning it the hard way
I did a BFA at Utah State — and won a national award at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival as an undergrad — then an MFA at UC San Diego. After that, a decade in New York as a design director, and a stint as a creative lead in Asia, before I went out on my own. By the time Studio Bound opened in 2015, I'd already shipped real shows, on deadline, in front of live audiences, in formats that had almost nothing in common.
Designing worlds, not just sets
What separates production design from set decoration is that you're responsible for the whole environment — the architecture of the experience. That's clearest in the work across Saudi Arabia. For Dragone's Terhal in Diriyah, I did set design on a live spectacular built around a young traveller named Saad, with a cast of more than 120 and a kinetic chandelier hanging over a 36-metre stage.
Engineering the spectacle
Some of the most demanding work I've done is in China. For Splendor — the resident Taihu Show in a purpose-built theatre at Wuxi, a Dragone creation retelling the legend of Xi Shi — I engineered kinetic, moving scenery on a scale most designers never touch: a revolving stage, a vast LED surface, a tilting, rotating lift built to make the spectacle physically move. Dragone's own materials credit me as kinetic and set designer, which is rare for this kind of work.
Water, illusion and the road
In Bali I designed the set for Varuna at Taman Safari — an underwater theatrical show and dining experience staged against a giant aquarium wall, directed by Peter Wilson. And on the road, my production design carried the Metaverse of Magic tour across Australia, an interactive magic show where the audience plays along on their phones. Two completely different worlds, a long way apart.
The award that came from broadcast
For all the resorts and arenas, the recognition that means the most came from television — the medium where the design has to disappear so the story can land. My scenic work on NBC News' Education Nation, a working outdoor studio at Rockefeller Center, won an Emmy.
Still building
The scale has changed beyond recognition since that Utah scene shop. The job hasn't. National parade, Vegas residency, mountaintop resort — it's the same thing every time: give a story somewhere to happen, and build it so well you forget it was ever built.