NEW YORK – Springboard to Design has launched a new series of virtual programming featuring industry professionals and Tony Award–winning artists, building on the success of its summer initiative. Designed for emerging designers, students, and theatre educators, the virtual series provides direct access to leading professionals from across the field. Each session will offer practical insight into the creative, technical, and professional realities of working in theatre design, and will conclude with a live Q&A, giving participants the opportunity to engage directly with the featured artists.
Registration is now open. Participants can sign up at https://springboardtodesign.com/events.
The virtual programming features Q&As with Tony Award-winning scenic designer Rachel Hauck (Hadestown, Swept Away), lighting designer Alejandro Fajardo (New York City Center, New York Fashion Week), Tony-nominated projection designer Peter Nigrini (Chess, Beetlejuice), Tony Award-winning scenic designer Donyale Werle (Peter & the Starcatcher), Tony Award-winning sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman (Death of a Salesman, Downstate, Other Desert Cities), lighting designer Amara Payton McNeil (Romeo & Juliet, Stereophonic) and scenic/costume designer Miguel Urbino (ART).
“The response to Springboard to Design has made clear just how much emerging designers are looking for access, mentorship, and a community that understands what it means to build a life in this field,” said Clint Ramos and David Zinn, Co Artistic Directors of Springboard to Design. “We wanted to take what makes the summer intensive so meaningful — the relationships, the exchange of ideas, and direct access to working designers — and create more opportunities for students and emerging artists to engage with that community throughout the year. The new virtual programming allows us to reach more people while continuing to build a more connected and representative future for theatre design.”
The series begins October 10 from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. ET with “Scenic Design: Building the World,” a session for emerging designers and students led by Tony Award-winning scenic designer Rachel Hauck. From developing a strong design concept and conducting research to collaborating with a creative team and making decisions within production constraints, Hauck will walk participants through her professional scenic design process, and close with a live Q&A.
On November 21 at 12:00 p.m. ET, “Hues & Cues: An Intro to Lighting Design” will explore the creative and technical practice of professional lighting design with Alejandro Fajardo. The session will examine how designers develop visual concepts and translate them into lighting plots, as well as how cue structure, color, angle, and intensity work together to shape a production’s emotional rhythm. Participants will also learn about the process from early collaboration with a director through tech and previews, and close with a live Q&A.
On December 5 at 12:00 p.m. ET, projection designer Peter Nigrini, whose credits include Dear Evan Hansen, Beetlejuice, and MJ The Musical, will lead “Projection Design: Image, Motion, and the Living Stage.” This session examines Peter's practice in depth: how he collaborates with directors and the other designers, how he builds and programs content, and how he navigates the intersection of design, technology, and storytelling. Attendees will come away with a clear-eyed picture of what projection design demands creatively and technically. The session closes with a live Q&A.
The series continues January 16 at 5:00 p.m. ET with “Teaching Design: A Workshop for Educators,” led by Tony Award-winning scenic designer Donyale Werle and designed specifically for high school and college theatre educators. The workshop will offer practical frameworks for introducing design thinking into classrooms and programs, including age-appropriate projects and vocabulary, approaches to mentoring students, and ways to help students consider design as a serious career pathway. The session closes with a live Q&A.
On January 30 at 3:00 p.m. ET, Tony Award-winning sound designer Mikaal Sulaiman will lead “The Language of Sound Design.” Sulaiman will take participants through the professional sound design process, from early conversations with a director and developing a sound concept through the technical build and tech process, while addressing the creative and professional demands of the discipline.The session closes with a live Q&A.
The series concludes February 27 at 12:00 p.m. ET with “Breaking In: Career Pathways and Navigating the Industry,” a conversation for emerging designers ages 18–25 and recent graduates featuring Amara Payton McNeil and Miguel Urbino. The session will explore how designers build careers in the theatre industry, including finding mentors, getting hired, developing portfolios, joining unions, and sustaining a career over time, while addressing structural barriers and the realities of building a career in the field.
Registration information for the upcoming virtual sessions are now available at the following link: https://springboard2design.untap.us/
ABOUT DESIGN ACTION
Design Action is an intergenerational coalition of BIPOC and white designers working to end racial inequities in the North American Theater by confronting racism in our workplace and forging new pathways into the industry for rising designers of color.
ABOUT CLINT RAMOS
Clint Ramos is a Tony Award-winning creative director, designer, and producer. Most recently, he produced Theatre Group Asia’s sold-out production of The Notebook in Manila, Philippines. Ramos designed costumes for The Metropolitan Opera’s 2026 production of Tristan und Isolde. He also produced Theater Group Asia’s sold-out production of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, starring Lea Salonga, Arielle Jacobs and featuring a cast of Filipinos and Filipino Americans. Ramos serves as the Visual Director for Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, where he reimagines the entire Lincoln Center campus each summer into a vibrant stage for more than 300 events that serve New York City’s diverse communities. He also serves as Artist-in-Residence at Lincoln Center.
Ramos was a lead producer of the groundbreaking Broadway musical Here Lies Love, and is currently the Producing Creative Director for Encores! at New York City Center. As a designer, Ramos has created over 200 productions across theater, opera, and dance. His Broadway credits include Maybe Happy Ending, Eureka Day, Here Lies Love, KPOP and Slave Play.
ABOUT DAVID ZINN
Recent work on Broadway includes scenery for: Liberation, The Last 5 Years, Stereophonic, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, The Notebook, Kimberly Akimbo, Funny Girl and The Humans; scenery and costumes for Boys in the Band, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Fun Home, and costume design for Enemy of the People and A Doll’s House Part 2. Off-Broadway: Playwright’s Horizons, The Shed, Roundabout, MTC, NYTW, Lincoln Center Theater, 2nd Stage, and The Public. Also: A.C.T., A.R.T, Berkeley Rep, Pasadena Playhouse, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe, and Steppenwolf. In London, he recently opened Here We Are at the National (set and costume design) and Stereophonic at the Duke of York’s. In Europe, he designed sets and costumes for the Berlin Staatsoper and at Theater Basel.
Zinn has received Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critic’s Circle, Hewes and Obie Awards for his work.
GUEST ARTISTS
Rachel Hauck is a Tony Award-winning scenic designer based in New York City. Broadway credits include Hadestown, The Avett Brothers' Swept Away, Doug Wright's Good Night Oscar, Paula Vogel's How I Learned To Drive, Heidi Schreck's What The Constitution Means To Me, and John Leguizamo's Latin History For Morons. Most recently, she designed the scenery for Cats: The Jellicle Ball, Galileo: A Rock Musical, and the Avett Brothers' Swept Away on Broadway. She has received the Tony Award for her design of Hadestown, as well as a Tony Nomination and Jeff Award for Good Night Oscar, and is the recipient of Drama Desk, Lortel, Helen Hayes, Audelco and Ovation nominations. She has received the Princess Grace Award, the Lilly Award, an OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from UCLA, where she received her BA. Rachel was the Resident Set Designer at the O'Neill Playwrights Conference for ten years, working with more than 70 playwrights, and remains dedicated to new work and new play development. She is a member of the American Theater Wing Advisory Board and the 1/52 Grant Administration Committee, a co-founder of Design Action, was an elected leader of her union, USA 829, for 12 years, and has taught at Princeton, Brown, Vassar, and Cal Arts.
Alejandro Fajardo is a Colombian artist based in New York City who works primarily as a lighting designer for theater, dance, and live events, and has recently expanded into production design for theatrical and immersive experience projects. He has designed and coordinated lighting for New York Fashion Week through IMCD Lighting and Rob Ross Design (2015–2019), and works with several music festivals creating environmental lighting and custom light art installations through Rob Ross Design. In dance, he works as Lighting Director for the Flamenco Festival and Associate Lighting Director for Fall for Dance Festival at New York City Center, and has toured as Lighting Supervisor for Lucinda Childs, Wendy Whelan, and Maya Beiser's The Day, Brian Brooks' repertory, and Rashaun Silas & Charles Atlas' Tesseract. Recent theatre credits include work with Theatre Breaking Through Barriers, Danspace Projects, Michiyaya Dance, The New School COPA, the Rough Draft Festival, Warren Miller Performing Arts Center, the Southern Theater, Hook & Eye Theater, The Civilians, Suku Dance Lab, Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, the Curtis Institute of Music, and Pace University, among others. Alejandro is also a longtime photographer working in both digital and analog formats, with extensive experience developing black-and-white and color film in a darkroom, and is a contributing photographer for Chance Magazine.
Peter Nigrini is one of Broadway's pioneering projection designers. His work includes MJ, Ain't Too Proud, Beetlejuice, The SpongeBob Musical, Dear Evan Hansen, A Doll's House Part 2, and Fela!. Other select credits include Grounded at the Public Theater, Hans Zimmer Live on its 2022 European tour, Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera, The Grace Jones Hurricane Tour, Deep Blue Sea with Bill T. Jones at Park Avenue Armory, and Real Enemies at BAM. He also transferred Here Lies Love to Broadway. He has been nominated for three Tony Awards, and has won a Lortel, a Drama Desk, and an Obie.
Donyale Werle is a Brooklyn, NY based theatrical set designer who supports and employs sustainable practices in scenic design, Donyale Werle is the Co-Chair (with Bob Usdin) of the Pre/Post Production Committee for the Broadway Green Alliance, which inspires, educates, and motivates the theater community and its patrons to implement environmentally responsible practices. She works with salvaged materials to create unique, handcrafted sets and props. Her honors include a 2011 Obie for Sustained Excellence of Set Design, a 2011 Lucille Lortel Award, and the 2010 Henry Hewes Design Award for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at The Public Theater, along with a 2011 Tony Nomination for the same production and a 2012 Tony Award for Peter & the Starcatcher on Broadway.
Mikaal Sulaiman is a Tony Award-winning multidisciplinary artist whose work spans film, television, theatre, and sound design. As founder of the media production company Moor Noor, he blends technical innovation with avant-garde artistry. He has written for two seasons of an upcoming A24/Amazon Studios series helmed by Ramy Youssef, and brought his creative vision to advertising projects for Mercedes-Benz, Hulu, Red Bull, Procter & Gamble, the Grammy Awards, Asics, and Skittles. He is also the creator and host of Black Enso, a podcast exploring the creative process through sonic essays and conversations with artists. As a sound designer and composer, his Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include Enemy of the People, Doubt, Fat Ham (Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Macbeth, Death of a Salesman, Thoughts of a Colored Man, Primary Trust (Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Sanctuary City, Fairview (Pulitzer Prize for Drama), and Underground Railroad Game. His honors include the Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, the Creative Capital Award, the CTG Sherwood Award, and the Henry Hewes Design Award, along with nominations for the Tony, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel Awards. He has served as Head of the MFA Sound Design Concentration at Yale University and as a Physical Theatre lecturer for UC San Diego's MFA Acting program.
Amara Payton McNeil is a New York-based, Hartford-raised theatrical lighting designer. She holds a B.A. in Theater from Fordham University and was the 2023 Howell Binkley Fellow. As a visual storyteller, she aims to create an immersive experience for the audience, using vibrant colors and dynamic angles to bring texture to the stage, and enjoys work created for and by the Black community and projects that blend performance and culture. Broadway credits include Romeo & Juliet (DMC), Stereophonic (Asst. LD), and the Come From Away 2nd National Tour (Asst. LD); regional and Off-Broadway credits include King James at George Street Playhouse, Vegan Chitlins at Dartmouth, the Icons Gala at PAC NYC, and Teeth at New World Stages, among others.
Miguel Urbino is a queer, London-based, first-generation Filipino-American designer for the stage who approaches design by investigating the humanity in each piece he works on, carving out space for underrepresented identities and cultures in western theatre classics and provoking discussions relevant to today's society. Previous collaborators include New York City Center, Repertory Philippines, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Public Theater, American Repertory Theater, Playwrights Horizons, and Yale School of Drama, among others. He was featured in the American Theatre Wing's Design Workshop with Clint Ramos and David Zinn, and in Art+ Magazine discussing his work on Yasmina Reza's ART. He is one of the 2023/24 recipients of the 1/52 Project Grant, earned his MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and his BA in Theatre Arts from Marymount Manhattan College, and is a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local USA 829, IATSE.