In Memoriam: Carol Mullins

Carol Mullins, the lighting designer and for decades a fixture of New York's downtown dance and theatre scene, died on March 24 of heart failure. She was 86.

A native of St. Paul, Minnesota, she grew up near Washington, DC. She attended George Washington University, where she majored in chemistry. She later worked for a technical publisher in Alabama. She also lived in Thailand for a time.

Mullins' life changed when she joined the Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds, run by the avant-garde director Robert Wilson. She soon began appearing in his production. Without training, she also began lighting his productions. According to the New York Times, this arrangement ended when he took control of lighting Einstein on the Beach, arguably his most famous production.

After working with the choreographer Andy de Groat, she became the resident lighting designer of Danspace Project, the home for new choreography at St. Mark's Church in New York's East Village. She still held the position at the time of her death.

According to the Times, "In addition to her position at Danspace Project, which she shared with Kathy Kaufmann starting in 1998, Ms. Mullins designed lighting in New York at the Joyce Theater, the performance and exhibition space the Kitchen, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as at theaters in France, Russia, Finland, and Brazil. She collaborated with the theater directors Anne Bogart and Andrei Serban and countless choreographers, including Steve Paxton, Yoshiko Chuma, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Douglas Dunn." Over the years, she earned one Obie and three Bessie Awards.

Mullins was married to the playwright Jim Neu, who died in 2010. She leaves no survivors.