Linda Pisano
Training as an actor from the age of eleven and an education in acting and design led to a lifelong career in and love for theatre, dance, and opera design. Originally from a small town in the perennially snow-covered Rocky Mountains of Northern Utah, I am the youngest of six children whose parents were historians, antique dealers, and collectors of rare and first edition books. Many of my Saturdays were spent working in their antique store, reading those rare books, or listening to the weekly NY Metropolitan Opera broadcast with my Australian mother. As we listened she would encourage me to imagine what the world of the operas looked like, which was incredibly influential in forming my lifelong love of storytelling and design. Growing up in this environment inspired an early fascination with the world beyond my rural surroundings and a love of travel, artists, and art styles from around the world.
Earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts degrees at Utah State University, followed by additional graduate studies at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and an MFA degree at The Ohio State University, offered excellent preparation for a career as a designer and teacher. I was introduced early in life to Buddhist art and the works of Kitagawa Utamaro, Gustav Klimt, and art nouveau. Later I enjoyed studying the film and opera designs of Eiko Ishioka and George Tsypin. Over the years I’ve realized my greatest strength as a designer is that I don’t have one specific style. I’m able to work with a wide range of aesthetic perspectives and am grateful to the early influences of my mother’s love of art and culture. Perhaps I’m a bit of a design chameleon. I love learning and hearing everyone’s stories, which is probably my greatest strength as a teacher.
I head the graduate MFA program in Costume Design and am Chair of the Department of Theatre, Drama, & Contemporary Dance at Indiana University. In twenty years of teaching and mentoring, I have found that if I mentor students where they are and not where I want them to go, they are the most successful and joyful designers. They embrace their work with passion and are able to immerse themselves in many genres and types of performance.
