Todd Rosenthal

  • Associate Professor, Theatre and Interpretation Center, School of Communication

Todd Rosenthal is an associate professor in the Theatre and Interpretation Center at Northwestern. He received his BA in English / Theater from Colgate University and his MFA in Set / Lighting Design from Yale University. Rosenthal received the 2008 Tony® Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play for August: Osage County. He designs at regional theatres across the country and abroad, including: Steppenwolf Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Arena Stage, Guthrie Theater, Centerstage, Alley Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Yale Repertory, Paper Mill Playhouse, Chicago Shakespeare, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse, Atlantic Theatre, Chicago Opera Theatre, Lyric Opera, National Theatre in London, and others.

Select recent projects include: The Crucible and Fake for Steppenwolf Theatre; Magnolia for The Goodman; Much Ado About Nothing for Oregon Shakespeare Festival; A Delicate Balance for Arena Stage; Edward 2 for Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Avenue X for The Alliance Theater; and Red Light Winter for The Barrow Street Theater (off Broadway). Current designs include: August: Osage County for the North American Tour and Sydney Theatre, Australia; A Streetcar Named Desire for The Guthrie Theatre; A Parallelogram for Steppenwolf Theatre; Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf for Arena Stage; The Sins of Sor Juana for The Goodman; You Can’t Take it with You for Broadway; and Of Mice and Men for Broadway.

For the past 5 years Todd has designed the scenery for New York’s Big Apple Circus. His work was included in the USA exhibition at The 2007 Prague Quadrennial exhibit of theater design in the Czech Republic. He is the only American designer to receive The Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Set Design (England’s equivalent of the Tony Award). He was awarded the Michael Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration in 2009. He has received a Joseph Jefferson Award and three After Dark
Awards.