Carey Wong

Carey Wong is a scenic and costume designer who has worked on over 200 productions in the US, Canada, China, and Spain. His theatre credits include the Seattle Repertory Theatre, ACT Theatre (Seattle), Intiman (Seattle), Seattle Children’s Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Tacoma Actors Guild, Childsplay, and Prince Music Theater (PA). He has been Resident Designer for Portland Opera, Opera Memphis and Wildwood Park for the Performing Arts (AK). Recent and current projects include The Chosen at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, The Underpants at the ACT Theatre, and The Grapes of Wrath at the Intiman, among others. Carey is currently a freelance designer and theatre consultant based in Gig Harbor, Washington.

As part of his Fellowship’s Meet the Artist requirements, Carey presented public slide lecture/demonstrations about his recent work at the Bellingham and Burlington Public Libraries. He showed slides of models and photographs from recent and past scenic designs. He also displayed and discussed several full or partial scale models that audience members were able to inspect closely. Four of these were from shows that he designed in 12-month period that followed his receiving the Artist Trust Fellowship: The Nutcracker (Ballet Arizona, 2006), Proof (Tacoma Actors Guild, 2007), First Class (ACT Theatre, 2007), and Murderers (Seattle Repertory Theatre, 2007). Carey spoke about his background and how he became interested in stage design. Audience members were especially interested in how the collaborative design process functions among producer, stage director, scenic designer, technicians, and performers, and in the logistics (and budgets) for realizing set designs in the scene shop. The talk also touched on recent trends in theatre design and technology.