On the set of KPOP, showing Jeanette Yew's lighting design
Tisch Drama Professor Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew is the recipient of the prestigious Henry Hewes Design Award for her lighting designs in the acclaimed musical KPOP, presented at A.R.T./New York Theatres and the Five Angels Theater at the 52nd Street Project.
Yew was one of four honorees to receive the award, which recognizes the achievements of theatrical designers working on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway in the areas of scenic, costume, and lighting design, as well as notable effects.
Chris P. Jaehnig, director of Tisch Drama’s Production & Design (P&D) Studio, expressed pride in the newly minted professor. Yew began teaching this fall.
"We are extremely proud that our new Assistant Arts Professor Jeanette Yew has received this fantastic honor,” he said. “She is so deserving for her design of KPOP.”
Yew received the honor on October 22 during the 54th annual awards ceremony in New York, presented by the American Theatre Wing.
Describing her designs, she called it a “challenging but interesting process.”
“The piece is conceived to take place in a K-pop factory, and the audience is supposed to be experiencing it as visitors who get to see many different things,” she said—including all of the miniature environments within the factory: dance and recording studios, performance spaces, an office, and more.
In plot, she said the piece explores race, loyalty, and social definitions, and general themes of identity and belonging.
“To tell the story, we took over all of the spaces at A.R.T./New York Theatres and also the Five Angels Theater at the 52nd Street Project. I had to design six distinct lighting environments, with people moving from room to room.”
Each environment had its own personality and required a great deal of research, she added.
“At first, we (the creative team) all got together to talk about each environment, and what it needed to be.”
In one instance, Yew needed to set the mood for a private spa belonging to the star of the K-pop label. “It’s much warmer, with a large fake tub and trees,” she noted. Yew looked at many different types of spa lighting and found one with a giant window—“and we all just fell in love with it.”
Upon hearing that she’d received the award, Yew—who teaches lighting design at Tisch Drama’s P&D Studio—said she was surprised, but honored.
Jaehnig noted that “Jeanette's students and departmental colleagues are fortunate to be learning and working with our new ‘award-winning’ lighting professor.”
KPOP was produced by Ars Nova in association with MA-YI Theater and the Woodshed Collective, and conceived by Jason Kim, who also wrote the book. Music and lyrics were written by Helen Park and Max Vernon, with immersive design by the Woodshed Collective. It was choreographed by Jennifer Weber and directed by Teddy Bergman.