Elaine J McCarthy

Education

Intending to study Political Science, McCarthy initially attended Catholic University in Washington, D.C. but subsequently left to pursue other interests. She eventually enrolled at New York University where she earned a B.F.A. in Photography & Imaging from the Tisch School of the Arts, Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television.

Early career

McCarthy held an administrative job in the early years of the MIT Media Lab, where she learned about computers. “I was exposed to the most bleeding-edge technology and everybody in that environment had a point of view to add, whether you were a tenured professor, or, like me, a glorified secretary — it was all part of the mix. That was my first exposure to a barrier-free environment.” This experience led her to the MIT Community Players which was her first exposure to the idea of theater as a potential career. After that she worked with an experimental theater company, the Pilgrim Theater Research and Performance Collaborative. While stage managing for them at the Edinburgh Festival it became clear to her that she wished to pursue a career in theater. She eventually worked her way to New York City working as a design assistant to noted projection designer Wendall K. Harrington through whose studio many of today's top projection design practitioners have passed. This is where she saw her varied interests in technology, art, design, photography, architecture, film and theater come together in one discipline, projection design for theater.”

She has since gone on to work with a diverse group of notable directors including Leonard Foglia, Michael Greif, Andrei Konchalovsky, James Lapine, Joe Mantello, Michael Mayer, Mike Nichols, Jack O'Brien, Tim Robbins, Peter Sellars, Julie Taymor and John Tillinger.

Broadway

She has many Broadway productions to her credit including After the Fall (2004 revival), Good Vibrations, The Green Bird, Judgement at Nuremberg, the Tony Award nominated productions of Man Of La Mancha (2002 Revival) and Wicked, as well as the Tony Award winning productions of Into The Woods (2002 Revival), Assassins (2004 Revival) and Monty Python's Spamalot.

Opera

She designed projections for Tan Dun's adaptation of The Peony Pavilion at the Wiener Festwochen as well as Tchaikovsky´s Mazeppa and the Andrei Konchalovsky directed production of Prokofiev's War and Peace, both co-productions of the Kirov Opera at the Mariinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She recently designed Alfredo Catalani's La Wally and Tchaikovsky's rarely performed Iolanta for The Dallas Opera.

In August 2015 McCarthy designed projections for the world premiere of the new opera Cold Mountain composed by Jennifer Higdon with a libretto by Gene Scheer at the Santa Fe Opera.

In the Fall of 2015 McCarthy returned to the Dallas Opera to design projections for the world premier production of Great Scott, a new opera by Jake Heggie and Terrance McNally directed by Jack O'Brien with Sets and Costumes by Bob Crowley and Lighting by Brian MacDevitt .

Recent and planned projects

Late summer 2016 McCarthy is designing projections for the New England premier production of Notes From The Field: Doing Time in Education, created, written and performed by Anna Deavere Smith in Boston at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) then moving to New York City's Second Stage Theater this fall. Directed by Leonard Foglia with Set design by Riccardo Hernandez, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting design by Howell Binkley

McCarthy is also working on the world premiere of Jake Heggie's new opera It's A Wonderful Life for the Houston Grand Opera December 2016. The production will be directed by Leonard Foglia with Sets by Robert Brill, Lighting by Brian Nason and Costumes by David C. Woolard.

McCarthy is a frequent collaborator with Director Leonard Foglia. She designed projections for his Off-Broadway production The Stendhal Syndrome; his Broadway productions Thurgood, and The People in the Picture; and his production of the Opera's Dead Man Walking for the New York City Opera as well as the World Premiere productions of Moby-Dick and Everest for the Dallas Opera and El Pasado Nunca se Termina for the Lyric Opera of Chicago for which she designed both Sets and Projections. “What Elaine is able to do,” he says, “is to use my ideas as a departure for her own creativity. She will take my ideas and lift it out to a level I could never have imagined. It's what I pray every designer will do.”

McCarthy is currently an Adjunct Instructor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Awards

McCarthy was nominated in 2017 for both the Drama Desk Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Projection Design for "Notes From The Field" at Second Stage and for an IRNE Award in the category Large Theater: Best Projection Design for "Notes From The Field" at the American Repertory Theater.

McCarthy was chosen as a Runner Up for Best Video Design for Entertainment Today's Ticketholder Award in 2010 for Thurgood at the Geffen Playhouse.

McCarthy was nominated for the American Theater Wing's Henry Hewes Design Award in 2009 for Notable Effects for Frequency Hopping produced by the Hourglass Group at the 3LD Arts & Technology Center in New York City for which she designed both the scenery and projections.

McCarthy was chosen as a Runner Up for Best Video Design for Entertainment Today's Ticketholder Award in 2007 for the Center Theatre Group's World Premier production of Lisa Loomer's play Distracted at the Mark Taper Forum for which she designed both Sets and Projections

In 2003 she was awarded an Entertainment Design Magazine Eddy Award for Projection Design Excellence