In Memoriam: John Conklin

	John Conklin

Scenic/costume designer John Conklin, a gifted and influential artist in the theatre and opera worlds, died on June 24 in Cooperstown, New York. He was 88. According to a statement from Glimmerglass Opera, located in Cooperstown, he had come out of retirement to design four productions for the company's 50th season. He had been associated with Glimmerglass since 1991.

A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Conklin was drawn to the performing arts at an early age, making scenic models at age ten. In an oral history with Opera America, he says, "Somewhere I had (and I've misplaced it. I keep hoping that it will surface eventually) a picture of me at about 12 or 13, holding a little model stage with Mount Fuji. So it, I think, must be Butterfly." He attended Yale then started working at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1958, designing a production of Jean Anouilh's Time Remembered. His Off Broadway debut was the little-known Richard Maltby-David Shire musical The Sap of Life. A sampling of his theatre credits includes King Lear (1969) at Arena Stage, with Frank Silvera in the title role: Hamlet (1972 at Long Wharf Theatre, with Stacy Keach; Richard III (1974) at Lincoln Center, starring Michael Moriarty and Marsha Mason; All the Way Home (1977) at Hartford Stage, starring Teresa Wright; Cyrano de Bergerac (1980) at Williamstown, starring Frank Langella; Passion Play (1988) at the Goodman Theatre; Peer Gynt (1989) at Hartford Stage, with Richard Thomas; The Iceman Cometh (1990) at the Goodman, with Brian Dennehy; The Carving of Mount Rushmore (1992) at Actors Theatre of Louisville; 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1992) at the Public Theater, with Val Kilmer and Jeanne Tripplehorn; Danton's Death (1992) at the Alley Theater, again with Thomas Derrah; the world premiere of Angels in America (1992) at Mark Taper Forum; Henry IV, Parts I and II (1993) at American Repertory Theatre; and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2004) at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore.

Conklin made his Broadway debut in 1963 with Langston Hughes' Tambourines to Glory. Other Broadway credits included The Au Pair Man (1973), starring Julie Harris and Charles Durning; the Carol Channing vehicle Lorelei (1974); a hit revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, starring Elizabeth Ashley and Fred Gwynne; Rex (1976), a Richard Rodgers musical about Henry VIII; The Bacchae (1980), starring Irene Papas; Awake and Sing! (1984), with Nancy Marchand, Harry Hamlin, and Frances McDormand; and A Streetcar Named Desire (1988) with Blythe Danner, Aidan Quinn, and Frances McDormand. He also designed at least two interesting Broadway-bound productions that closed out of town: Colette (1982), a musical about the French author, starring Diana Rigg, and Time and Again, based on the cult science-fiction novel, starring Rebecca Luker and Howard McGillin.

Arguably, opera was Conklin's true love, beginning with a New York City Opera production of Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1966. His designs were seen at San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Kennedy Center, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Seattle Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington National Opera, and Boston Lyric Opera; abroad, he worked at English National Opera; Royal Opera, Stockholm; Bastille Opera, Paris; and the opera companies of Munich, Amsterdam, and Bologna. A small sampling of his astonishing output included Ring Cycles for San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago; The Magic Flute for Opera Bastille; Khovanshchina, Lucia di Lammermoor, and Pelleas and Melisande and the world premiere of The Ghosts of Versailles at the Metropolitan Opera; La Fanciulla del West, Abduction from the Seraglio, and The Mines of Sulphur for Glimmerglass Opera; War and Peace, La Boheme, La Traviata, Il Trovatore, Norma, and The Turn of the Screw for Seattle Opera; and , and Venus and Adonis for Santa Fe Opera.

Nominated for a Tony (for The Au Pair Man) and two Drama Desk Awards (for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore), he also received 2008 Robert L.B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatrical Design from the Theatre Development Fund and the 2011 NEA Opera Honors. He was the associate artistic director at Glimmerglass from 1990 to 2008 and an artistic advisor to Boston Lyric Opera until his death.

Conklin taught design and dramaturgy at NYU for four decades, where he influenced and mentored several generations of designers. "John had a way of getting everybody to be as deeply invested in the process as he was," says Glimmerglass director of production Abby Rodd, who began her career as a Glimmerglass intern in 1992. "He had such a huge following among the interns, and they had so much loyalty towards him, that we could make anything happen onstage."

Conklin's final designs, to be seen at Glimmerglass this summer, are the new opera The House on Mango Street plus The Rake's Progress, Sunday in the Park with George, and Tosca.

Speaking on the occasion of his NEA Opera Honors award, he noted, "I started out, as so many people in opera do, based on the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts. I got Opera News, with pictures of the productions, and I would make little sets based on those, little models taken from those photographs. So, it was always a kind of combination of theatre, which I loved, music, which I loved, and architecture...Unlike architecture or painting, it all gets thrown away at the end, which I think is so wonderful. People say, Oh, isn't it terrible? Don't you feel terrible when the scenery or the costumes are taken away? I say no, no! It does not exist without the performance...the fact that it can exist so strongly and then it only exists in memory is to me kind of fascinating and puts it all in the right perspective."