Mimi Lien is a designer of sets/environments for theater, dance, and opera. Arriving at set design from a background in architecture, her work often focuses on the interaction between audience/environment and object/performer.
Recent opera projects include Grounded at Met Opera and Washington National Opera, Parsifal at Bayreuther Festspiele, The Righteous at Santa Fe Opera, Intelligence at Houston Grand Opera, The Comet/Poppea with The Industry/AMOC*/Curtis Institute, and Die Zauberflöte at Staatsoper Berlin. Her theater work includes Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (Tony Award), Sweeney Todd (Tony nomination), True West, Fairview, An Octoroon (Soho Rep), and A 24 Decade History of Popular Music (St. Ann’s Warehouse). Her large-scale public artworks include The GREEN at Lincoln Center; PARADE, a conveyor-belt installation commissioned by The Bentway in Toronto; and Model Home, a performance installation utilizing a 60-ft crane in San Diego. In 2015, she became the first set designer ever to be honored with a MacArthur Fellowship. She has also received a Bessie Award, Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, American Theatre Wing Hewes Design Award, Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity at Lincoln Center Theater, and OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence. She is a co-founder of the Brooklyn performance/art space JACK.
