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Design Innovation Summer Institute – Scenic

Bring stories to life through design

A unique opportunity to examine the process of scenic design through script and drawing.

The Design Summer Institute in Scenic Design is a two-week, UC credit-bearing intensive for students interested in scenic design for theater, film, and television. This program provides opportunities to work with our distinguished faculty in classes such as Introduction to Scenic Design and Scale Drafting, Production Design for Theater, Film and Television, and Storyboarding. Students will learn the design process for scenic design for theater and be introduced to production design. The combination of these courses will allow students to use the training to discover how we can tell stories through visual research, sketches, and model design.

Students will learn the technical components of breaking down a script and the art of collaboration with directors while gaining hands-on experience such as model-building, perspective drawing, and scale measurement as means of realizing a design. Beyond the classroom, students will attend guest workshops that will cover portfolio and career preparation.

The program is designed for artists and students who seek additional discipline and training required for participation in a university theater program or a career in the entertainment industry. Participation in this institute is open to pre-college students.

Fees and Payment Info

The program fee includes the unit fees for the UCLA coursework offered as part of the program and thus varies by UC student status. The program fee also includes the cost of UCLA Housing (for mandatory housing programs). In addition to the program fee, students are assessed other campus and administrative fees during the summer. This is a summary of fees that commonly apply to the selected student type.

Actual tuition and fees are subject to change by the University of California. Visit the fees, payment, and financial aid section for important disclaimer, as well as more details on fees, payment instructions, and information on delinquency, refunds, and financial aid.

 

Program Fee
TBD
Registration Fee
$350.00
IEI Fee
$61.00
Document Fee (for first-time Summer Sessions students)
$50.00
Total Estimated Fees:
$461.00
* Fees only apply for certain student types

Meet your instructors

Randy Wong-Westbrooke

Instructor

Randy Wong-Westbrooke is an award-nominated scenic designer born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically on the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone people. Driven by their own mixed-Asian, trans, and non-binary identities, they seek opportunities to work with diverse creative teams to tell radical, provocative, and intersectional stories that question and celebrate our collective histories.

They have designed sets for American Conservatory Theater’s M.F.A. Program, Shotgun Players, TheatreFIRST, Crowded Fire Theater, Ferocious Lotus, SF Playhouse’s Sandbox, New Conservatory Theater Company, Custom Made Theatre, Cutting Ball Theater, Los Altos Stage Company, Palo Alto Players, Contra Costa Civic Theater, as well as many other new and independent projects.

While primarily a scenic designer, their additional credits include costume designer for Art and Significant Other (SF Playhouse), and props and associate costume designer for the world premiere of Mermaid Hour: Remixed (Mixed Blood Theatre Co.) in Minneapolis. During the pandemic, they’ve worked on multiple virtual productions as well as production designing music videos for Oakland-based music group Tune-Yards and designing installations for the lobbies for the Lighthouse Immersive Immersive Van Gogh Exhibition around the country.

They have been a scenic art assistant in Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s F.A.I.R. Program and a mentee in the USITT Gateway Program. B.F.A. Ithaca College. This Fall they will start their third year pursuing their M.F.A. in Set Design from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.

Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Stories Matter. The Revolution Must Be Accessible.

VOTE.

Myung Hee Cho

Professor

Myung Hee Cho is a set and costume designer for theater, opera, and dance. Her current projects include For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf at Booth Theater on Broadway; Richard III and As You Like It for Shakespeare in the Park at The Delacorte Theater. Her recent projects include set design for The Body of the World at Manhattan Theater Club and ART; Aubergine & Sheepdog at SCR; Black Super Hero Magic Mama at Geffen Playhouse; set and costumes for Golden Fairytale Fanfare, the opening show at the new Shanghai Disney Resort; The Thieving Magpie at Glimmerglass Opera; The Marriage of Figaro at Washington National Opera and the set design for Trojan Women, a new Korean opera at the National Theater of Korea, Theater an der Wien in Vienna, and Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, Holland Festival, Amsterdam.

Cho has designed many premieres including the musical Stuck Elevator at American Conservatory Theater; the Off-Broadway production and North American national tour of WIT; The Public Theater production and North American national tour of Lackawanna Blues; Black Odyssey at Denver Center Theater; Emotional Creature by Eve Ensler at The Linney Theatre in New York, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Market Theatre, Johannesburg; Extraordinary Chambers at Geffen Playhouse; 36 Views at the Berkeley Repertory Theater and The Public; Awaking for Singapore Theatre Festival; The National Broadway Company, TheaterWorks, Singapore; Yellow Face for Mark Taper Forum and The Public Theater; System Wonderland and The Piano Teacher at South Coast Repertory; Citizen 13559 at the Kennedy Center; The Golden Mickeys for Disney Creative Entertainment/Hong Kong; Open Window for Pasadena Playhouse and Deaf West Theatre; and Flight and Distant Shore at Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre. Other selected credits include Miss Julie at Geffen Playhouse; The Magic Flute at the Canadian Opera Company; The Good Person of Szechuan at the Landestheater Linz, in Linz, Austria; and Le nozze di Figaro at the Chicago Opera Theater.

Cho is Professor of Stage Design at UCLA. In 1996, Cho received a Princess Grace Award and was an artist-in-residence at The Public Theater/NYSF. She is a graduate of Cooper Union and Yale School of Drama.