In Memoriam: Don Childs

Donald J. Childs, the lighting and scenic designer and educator, died on December 18 from complications following surgery.

Childs, who has born in 1943, began his theatrical career in the 1960s at the San Francisco Actors Workshop. During his time there, he also spent five summers at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, working as a technician, lighting designer, and finally as technical director. When the workshop's founders, Herbert Blau and Jules Irving, went to New York to take over the Repertory Company of Lincoln Center, Childs returned to college, obtaining a BA from the University of Iowa and MFA from Indiana University. A teaching career took him from San Diego to Montreal and many places in between. At the time of his death, he was teaching and designing at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

In a career spanning five decades, Childs designed over 200 plays, musicals, dance concerts, and exhibitions for academic and professional theatres. His work has been displayed at the Prague Quadrennial, where a production that he lit for set designer Ladislav Vychodil won the Gold Medal for Scenography. Among his favorite designs was the Tennessee Williams drama Not About Nightingales, produced at Sam Houston State in 2003. Nightingales brought him a number of awards, including an invitation to exhibit in the inaugural World Stage Design exhibition in Toronto in 2005. Childs was named Artist of the Year by Texas Educational Theatre Association in 2007. He was also chair of the Southwest region of the United States Institute of Theatre Technology, and a member of IATSE-USA 829 and IAAM

Childs is survived by his wife of 45 years Jane Childs. Together, they built businesses, trained students, and maintained an extended community of artists and friends. He is also survived by their daughter, the novelist Tera Lynn Childs. In 2006, Don and Jane Childs founded the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas, an eight-week summer intensive program that uses the backdrop of state-of-the-art live entertainment production in Las Vegas to train the next generation of working professionals. The institute will go ahead with its sixth season beginning in June of 2012.

A celebration of Child's life is planned for the upcoming USITT conference in Long Beach, California, March 28-31.

Memorial donations are being accepted for the Don Childs Student Opportunity Scholarship to USITT. Send to USITT, Re: Don Childs, 315 South Crouse Avenue, Suite 200, Syracuse, NY 13210.