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In Memoriam: David Hays

David Hays, a leading Broadway scenic designer who, in midlife, took on a new career as the founding artistic director of the National Theatre for the Deaf, died on February 17. He was 95 and lived in Essex, Connecticut.

Born in Far Rockaway, New York City, he began designing scenery in high school. He graduated from Harvard in 1952, and on a Fulbright scholarship in London, worked at the Old Vic Theatre, the predecessor to today's National Theatre, on productions directed by John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier. According to the New York Times, he assisted the designer Roger Furse on the Agatha Christie thriller, The Mousetrap, which is still running in the West End. He subsequently attended Yale Drama School and Boston University, earning a graduate degree from the latter institution.

After grad school, Hays' career got an instant boost from designing the famous Off-Broadway revival of The Iceman Cometh, which kicked off a Eugene O'Neill revival. He followed up with the first American production of Long Day's Journey Into Night, a landmark Broadway production, which also launched the Broadway career of lighting designer Tharon Musser.

Among the many notable productions designed by Hays were The Tenth Man (1959), Paddy Chayefsky's long-running drama about the attempted exorcism of a Jewish girl; All the Way Home, winner of the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Gideon (1961), another Chayefsky drama, in this case based on the Old Testament figure; No Strings (1962), the groundbreaking Richard Rodgers musical, noted for its jazz-influenced score and central interracial romance; the famous 1963 Actors Studio revival of O'Neill's Strange Interlude with an all-star cast; Baby Want a Kiss (1964), starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward; the beloved cult musical Drat! The Cat! (1965); Two by Two (1970), the Richard Rodgers musical about Noah; and many productions for the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, including Tiger at the Gates (1968), Cyrano de Bergerac (1968), Saint Joan (1968), and The Miser (1969). His final Broadway show was Kingdoms (1981), a short-running historical drama about the clash between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII.

By then, Hays had founded the National Theatre of the Deaf. According to the Times, "Made up of mostly deaf and a few hearing actors, the troupe was credited with increasing the visibility of sign language and using it as a new means of theatrical expression. The company also started a training academy and the Little Theater of the Deaf, aimed at young audiences."

The company had a lengthy, successful career until it underwent a crisis when it was discovered that the company's executive director had embezzled some of its funds. Hays retired and devoted himself to writing. His books include Light on the Subject: Stage Lighting for Directors and Actors and the Rest of Us (1988); the best-selling My Old Man and the Sea (1995), written with his son, David; and Setting the Stage (2017), a memoir. Hays, was nominated for five Tony Awards, also designed 30 ballets for George Balanchine.

Hays is survived by his wife, Nancy Varga; his children from his first marriage, Julia and David; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. His first wife died in 2000. A second marriage ended in divorce.


(23 February 2026)

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