You-Shin Chen
I was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan. I grew up with Legos and novels. To me, scenic design is building a world for a story to take place.
I majored in Drama and Theatre at National Taiwan University, where I studied scenic design with Professor Dar-Lurn Liu. He received his MFA in scenic design from the Yale School of Drama and that provided the basis for his class structure. In addition to the many scenic design classes and school productions in which I was involved, I studied other design disciplines as well as acting and directing. My experience in undergrad built a solid foundation and well-rounded introduction to navigating the theatre world.
I decided to continue my design education, and in 2011 arrived in New York City to acquire my MFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. I studied scenic design under Christine Jones, Andrew Lieberman, and Paul Steinberg. During the three years at NYU, I explored different ways of analyzing and interpreting scripts and projects. I learned to respond to projects not only dramaturgically but also emotionally, which was new and exciting.
During the past four years, I was fortunate to work as a design assistant and/or associate for Mimi Lien, Laura Jellinek, Marsha Ginsberg, and Tilly Grimes. They are very different designers but all equally inspiring. It is always fun and enlightening to observe their design logic and philosophies. As a female-identified person working in the theatre, I have learned much about communicating and negotiating a design. Working for successful female designers is teaching me different ways to collaborate within a male-dominated industry.
In New York City politics and theatre are intertwined. I am more sensitive and attuned to the current international political climate the longer I live here. Living in a city with great cultural diversity, I have worked on projects with backgrounds that were unfamiliar to me. These projects required me to do intensive research in order to fully understand people’s daily lives in specific cultures. As both a foreigner and person of color, I ask myself: if today, someone from another culture is hired to design a project based on East Asian cultures, what kind of efforts should they make in order to take a closer look at those cultures and fight against stereotypes? This question is a reminder of my commitment to diversity and humanity as a theatre practitioner.
I work as the scenic designer for Big Green Theater at the Bushwick Starr partnering with Superhero Clubhouse. They teach fourth and fifth graders about the environment and climate change and then the kids write mini plays based on what they have learned. These plays are fun, imaginative, and educational at the same time. I lead a set design workshop in which kids explore the setting for their stories and build models. In the realized production, I am challenged to design an environmentally sustainable set. It is rewarding for the kids to see a professional team of theatre makers bring their stories to life.
