Brian MacDevitt
Brian MacDevitt is a lighting designer and educator. He has worked extensively on Broadway and Off Broadway, as well as touring, Regional theatre, and Industrial productions. He won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for his work on the 2002 Broadway revival of "Into The Woods." He also won the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Play three times and the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a Musical once for "The Book of Mormon" in 2011. Early life and education. A Long Island, New York, native, MacDevitt went to Ward Melville High School  in East Setauket. Afterwards, he attended SUNY Purchase and graduated with a degree in Lighting Design from the Department of Design/Technology of the Division of Theatre Arts & Film. Career. After graduation Brian spent a decade honing his craft with Off Broadway and other productions, and also developed a reputation as a teacher of design. He began teaching at Purchase as a visiting professor in 1986. He continued to balance his teaching career while breaking into Broadway in 1994 with "What's Wrong With This Picture?" Brian started to achieve notice with the Terrence McNally play "Love! Valour! Compassion!" in  1995. His success continued through the 1990s, and eventually culminated with a Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in 2002 for the revival of "Into the Woods". He won again in 2005 for "The Pillowman", in 2007 for "The Coast of Utopia", sharing the award with Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz (The three also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for "Utopia".) In fall of 2009, Brian began working as an Associate Professor of lighting design at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he is still teaching. He also designed the revival of Neil Simon's  Brighton Beach Memoirs, "Broadway Bound" and David Mamet's new play "Race". In the 2010 season he designed "A Behanding in Spokane", "Fences, Armida" at The Metropolitan Opera, and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". In 2011 he designed "The Book of Mormon, "Le" comte Ory" at The Metropolitan Opera and "The House of Blue Leaves". Brian won the Tony in 2009 for his lighting of the play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" and again in 2011, for the musical "Book of Mormon". He has had several students go on to also design Broadway productions, including Kenneth  Posner, Jeff Croiter, Jason Lyons, and Jen Schriever. Personal life. He has a large extended family, but by far his favorite first cousin once removed is Thomas MacDevitt.