Boris Aronson

Boris Aronson (October 15,1898 – November 16, 1980) was an influential American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre.

Biography

The son of a Rabbi, Aronson was born in Kiev, in the Russian Empire, and enrolled in art school during his youth. Boris later became an apprentice to the designer Aleksandra Ekster, who in turn introduced him to the directors Vsevolod Meyerhold and Alexander Tairov, all of whom exerted immense influence on him. These three theatre and art veterans were advocates of the Constructivist school in Russia, as opposed to Stanislavski's form of Realism, and they convinced Aronson to embrace the Constructivist style.

Aronson worked for some years in Moscow and Germany. In Berlin he exhibited at the seminal Van Diemen Gallery "First Exhibition of Russian Art", alongside the Constructivists El Lissitzky and Naum Gabo, which introduced Constructivism to the West. He wrote two books in Berlin, on Marc Chagall and Jewish graphic art respectively, before he was able to obtain a visa for emigration to America in 1923. He moved to the Lower East Side in New York City and soon began designing sets and costumes for the more experimental of the city's Yiddish theatres, including the Unser Theater, the Schildkraut Theatre, and most notably Maurice Schwartz's famous Yiddish Art Theatre. He achieved fame in New York's Jewish community when he designed Schwartz's popular 1926 revival of Abraham Goldfaden's play "The Tenth Commandment". Although he shunned politics, Aronson also produced sets for the Communist affiliated ARTEF, short for Arbeiter Teater Farband (Workers' Theatre Union), such as Lag Boymer and Jim Kooperkop in 1930. However, he soon after left the Yiddish Theatre to prevent his work's "ghettoization", and debuted on Broadway, in 1932, with a revival of Vernon Duke and Yip Harburg's Walk a Little Faster. During the 1930s, he also worked on several productions by the Group Theatre, including works by Clifford Odets and Irwin Shaw.

From 1934 to 1952, Aronson designed scenes, costumes, and lighting for thirty-four plays and three musicals on Broadway that achieved varying degrees of recognition (including his design for what is considered to be the first "concept musical", Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner's "Love Life"), but those successes were overshadowed by his work for the original 1953 production of "The Crucible" and the 1955 "The Diary of Anne Frank" (a play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett based on ""). He continued his work on Broadway into the 1970s with notable and famous musicals such as "Do Re Mi", "Fiddler on the Roof" (for which Aronson returned to his earlier experience with Jewish theatre, and was a turning point in his career), "Cabaret", "Zorba", "Company", "Follies", "A Little Night Music", and "Pacific Overtures".

Aronson also designed sets for the Metropolitan Opera, as well as various ballet companies, including a production of "The Nutcracker" choreographed by Mikhail Baryshnikov. He was also a non-theatrical artist, working as a painter and sculptor. At the time of his death in 1980, he was a highly respected member of New York's theatre and art community and one of its most famous designers. Boris' wife was Lisa Jalowetz, who worked on many of Aronson's shows as his assistant.

Comments by Directors and Designers

"For Company, Harold Prince and Aronson had discussed at length a Francis Bacon painting [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/81/Figure_in_Frame_%281950%29.jpg/170px-Figure_in_Frame_%281950%29.jpg *] of a figure in motion behind a steel-and-glass coffee table. They decided that it captured the 'frantic, anxious, driven' quality of urban life, and ... Aronson presented Prince with that famous chrome-and-glass backdrop. ... Aronson had made a study of how many buttons he pushed on an average day in New York City ... Prince ... was delighted to find that Aronson had given him two working elevators to play with." [cite journal |last=Gold |first=Sylviane |year=1984 |month=October |title="You can't do French farce in a dungeon" Harold Prince on design |journal=Theater Crafts |volume=18 |issue=8 |pages=p. 58 |id=ISSN 0040-5469 ]

"Michael Bennett ... was astonished that Aronson 'didn't do three projects at once', as many designers did, but instead 'watched every line change every night.' The veteran lighting designer Tharon Musser ... felt that she learned more from Aronson than from any other set designer in her long career. 'His design concepts were so strong that if someone went against them, the show would be ruined.' [cite book |author=Frank Rich with Lisa Aronson |title=The theatre art of Boris Aronson |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |year=1987 |pages=p.26 |isbn=0-394-52913-8]

Tony Awards

*1951 "Season in the Sun", "The Rose Tattoo" and "The Country Girl" - winner
*1956 "The Diary of Anne Frank", "A View from the Bridge", "Once Upon A Tailor" and "Bus Stop" - nominee
*1957 "A Hole in the Head" and "Small War on Murray Hill" - nominee
*1958 "The Rope Dancers", "Orpheus Descending" and "A Hole in the Head" - nominee
*1959 "J.B." - nominee
*1965 "Fiddler on the Roof" - nominee
*1967 "Cabaret" - winner
*1968 "The Price" - nominee
*1968 "Zorba" - winner
*1971 "Company" - winner
*1972 "Follies" - winner
*1973 "A Little Night Music" - nominee
*1976 "Pacific Overtures" - winner

Broadway credits

*"Awake and Sing!" (1935)
*"The Merchant of Yonkers" (1938)
*"Ladies and Gentlemen" (1939)
*"Cabin in the Sky" (1940)
*"South Pacific" (1943), no relation at all to the famous 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical
*"The Desert Song" (1946) (revival)
*"I Am a Camera" (1951)
*"The Creation of the World and Other Business" (1972)

References

External links

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* [http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00008p2.xml&query=aronson,%20boris&query-join=and Boris Aronson Collection] at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
* [http://www.nypl.org/research/manuscripts/the/thearons.xml Boris Aronson Papers and Designs, 1923-2000]
* [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/aronson_b.html Biographical sketch for Boris Aronson] on the PBS/Stars Over Broadway web site
* [http://www.films42.com/faq/aronson.asp Films42 FAQ]

###@@@KEY@@@### s-ach|awsuccession box
title=Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design
years=1975-1976
for "Pacific Overtures"
before=Carl Toms
for "Sherlock Holmes"
after=Santo Loquasto
for "The Cherry Orchard"