Shaping the Story: Designs for the Theatre by Carey Wong

Carey Wong is an architect of worlds. As a stage designer for plays, operas, ballets and musicals, he has created scenic environments for over 300 productions in a career spanning 50 years. With alchemical wizardry, he synthesizes a director’s aesthetic vision with the psychological perspective of the playwright, distilling them into a logistical map for the many craftspeople tasked with building the physical framework of a drama.

In Shaping the Story: Designs for the Theatre, viewers see how a set design arises from drawings on paper to exquisitely detailed, 3-D scale models—creative iterations that will bloom into the spectacle of live theatre. “I get to work with people who are creative: all the shop personnel, the carpenters, the painters, the props people, the actors, the director,” Wong said in a museum video. “So, they’re great exercises in collaboration.”

The magic of Wong’s artistry is on full display in his miniature sets (or maquettes). Similar to architectural models, these fantastical worlds are built to scale showing the features—and anomalies, such as the odd door or steps—of the real-life stage, features the designer is challenged to embolden or to seamlessly blend into the scenery. From Blithe Spirit to Rigoletto, Wong’s archival maquettes are meticulously hand-cut and -painted: “I’ve only cut myself twice in 50 years!” he told Preview with a laugh.

A Yale alum, Wong has worked with theatre companies nationally and internationally. He aspires to communicate his own artistic curiosity through his sets. “What I want to do is to have people see things in a slightly different way, or see things from a perspective that they may not have thought of. And I think that’s what’s always the great joy in stage design.”

washingtonhistory.org