MiMI Lien
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. She hails from New Haven, CT and is based in Brooklyn, NY.
In 2015, she was named a MacArthur Fellow, and is the first set designer ever to achieve this distinction. Selected work includes Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, TONY Award, Lortel Award, 2013 Hewes Design Award), John (Signature Theatre, 2016 Hewes Design Award), Appropriate (Mark Taper Forum, LA Drama Critics Circle Award), Preludes, The Oldest Boy (Lincoln Center), An Octoroon (Soho Rep/TFANA, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations), Black Mountain Songs (BAM Next Wave). Her stage designs have been exhibited in the Prague Quadrennial in 2011 and 2015, and her sculptures were featured in the exhibition, LANDSCAPES OF QUARANTINE, at the Storefront for Art and Architecture.
Her designs for theater, dance, and opera have been seen around the U.S. at such venues as Lincoln Center Theater, Signature Theatre, Playwright's Horizons, the Public Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Joyce Theater, Goodman Theatre, Soho Rep, and internationally at Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre (Russia), Intradans (Netherlands), National Theatre (Taiwan), among many others. Mimi Lien received a B.A. in Architecture from Yale University (1997) and an M.F.A. in Stage Design from New York University (2003).
She is a company member of Pig Iron Theatre Company and co-founder of the performance space JACK.
AWARDS
2018 Bessie Award - Visual Design for MEMOIRS OF A UNICORN
2017 TONY Award - Set Design for NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812
2016 Hewes Design Award / American Theatre Wing - Set Design for JOHN
2015 MacArthur Fellowship
2015 Lincoln Center Theater / Joan Cullman Award for Extraordinary Creativity - PRELUDES and THE OLDEST BOY
2015 LA Drama Critics Circle Award - Distinguished Achievement in Set Design for APPROPRIATE
2015 Drama Desk Award Nomination - Set Design for An Octoroon
2014 Suzi Bass Award Nomination - Outstanding Scenic Design for Warrior Class
2014 Hewes Design Award Nomination - An Octoroon and Stop Hitting Yourself
2014 Lucille Lortel Award - Set Design for NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812
2013 Hewes Design Award / American Theatre Wing - Set Design for NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812
2013 Drama Desk Award Nomination - The Whale
2012 OBIE Award - Sustained Excellence in Set Design
2012 Audelco Award Nomination - Milk Like Sugar
2011 Bay Area Critics Circle Nomination - Strange Devices From the Distant West
2010 Barrymore Award Nomination - Becky Shaw and Welcome to Yuba City
2007 TCG/NEA Career Development Program
2008 Hewes Design Award Nomination - Queens Boulevard
2008 Barrymore Award Nomination – Eurydice, Wilma Theater
2007 Barrymore Award Nomination - Galileo
2005 Barrymore Award - OUTRAGE