Award-winning scenic designer John Iacovelli passed away on Friday, April 14, 2023 at the age of 64. Many years ago, I visited John on the set of "Babylon 5," for which he was nominated for an Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design in 1998. He won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Art Director for a Variety or Music Program for "Peter Pan" in 2021. I think the last time I saw John was at USITT in 2018, when he received their Distinguished Achievement Award in Scene Design and Technology. His additional awards include a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, a Bay Area Drama Critics Circle Award, the Backstage West Garland Award, and fourteen Drama-Logue Awards.
Obituary from the LA Times:
John Iacovelli, the Emmy-winning prolific scenic designer for stage and screen, whose ability to balance poetics with pragmatism made him a beloved and invaluable collaborator for Los Angeles theater artists for many decades, died Friday after a long battle with cancer, his family told The Times. He was 64.
His range was limitless, moving effortlessly on stage from lavish musical spectacle to Beckettian minimalism, on screen from the space opera of “Babylon 5” to the instantly recognizable reality of “Lincoln Heights.” Theater was his true love and the dream factory Iacovelli operated seemed to run around the clock, but precision was never sacrificed by speed of production.
“John worked scenic miracles on Los Angeles stages throughout his long and distinguished career,” said Times theater critic Charles McNulty. “His fertile imagination and practical know-how could endow any work from the repertoire with just the right amount of whimsy, lyricism and realism.”
“His death represents an incalculable loss for L.A.’s theater community,” McNulty added. “He was a pillar of the scene here, a beloved and trusted counselor to fellow artists, an amiably enlightening interlocutor with critics and an impish presence who embodied theater’s Dionysian spirit.”
Iacovelli worked with budgets big, medium and small, conjuring from the resources at hand the scenic magic required to transport an audience to the aesthetic world of the play or musical. But he was, first and foremost, a practical man of the theater.
As he told The Times’ Mary McNamara in 2020, “In the end, the set is there to serve the actors...It is a machine for action.”
Quotes from friends:
"In honor of my dear friend and long time colleague, John Iacovelli. This is particularly difficult. So many incredible shared experiences, challenges, fun and incredible work. Grateful to have brought John into the truly unbelievable project of “Casablanca, the Dance,” where we collaborated in creating a complete black and white experience that transformed to color. In China. Where no one had ever built a Western designed production before. The highs and lows of that experience, of finding the people to build this project and turn his vision and our collective vision into an incredible reality were beyond any imaginable. And it was stunning. And fun. I’m sure some part of it was fun, mostly because it couldn’t not be with John. And crazy difficult and stressful.
We first met on a wonderful Fountain Theater production of Central Avenue directed by Shirley Jo Finney in 2001. As with most all of you, we became fast friends immediately and have stayed so through the years.
I’m so grateful for all the time I spent with you my friend, and deeply saddened that those times have ended in this realm. Here’s to dinners at the Tam. May you always have as many productions as you like in progress." —Marc Rosenthal.
"So sad to hear of the passing of my good friend and colleague John Iacovelli. I will miss him dearly. He was a collaborative, graceful presence in all of our various projects. Working with him was like coming home. His care and support of all the artists he touched along the way lifted us all. Heaven has a new set designer. As I remember him, I can only smile and recall the warm embrace of every chanced encounter." —Jon Gottlieb.
"Late last week, our union and our broader community lost an incredible visionary, leader, and artist in John Iacovelli. The award-winning designer and mentor to our union members and industry colleagues alike leaves an enduring legacy in which we can only strive to honor and build upon. For our Local, John was a leader in the Western Region, a voice and champion for his union kin, and an incredible collaborator that welcomed all and made our union, simply, better. As an artist, his transformative work will continue to inspire us all just as his work has so often brought us into the stories on stage and screen through his imagination, passion, and innovation. He will be missed tremendously, honored endlessly, and remembered as an influential part of our shared history in entertainment, design, and within our Local.
"In a career spanning more than 40 years, Iacovelli designed sets for at least 300 stage productions: for national tours, internationally, on Broadway, for large regional theaters and every cramped, dusty 99-seat house in and around L.A. He moved seamlessly between the stage and Hollywood, working on films including “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” and “Ruby in Paradise,” and TV series including “Babylon 5,” “Resurrection Blvd.” and “Ed.” He earned an Emmy for the stage production of “Peter Pan” he had designed, which played on A&E." —United Scenic Artists Local USA 829