biography
Daniel Ostling is a two time Tony Award-nominated Scenic (and Lighting) Designer based in Taipei, San Francisco, Chicago and NYC. He has been an ensemble member of Lookingglass Theatre Company since 2003 (1997-2003 an artistic associate) where he has designed over thirty productions. He is a long time collaborator with fellow Lookingglass ensemble member Mary Zimmerman with whom he has designed over thirty productions including Metamorphoses (Circle in the Square/Broadway-2003 Tony nomination-Best Set Design).
Recent productions worth note include: a new opera, Eurydice (LA Opera February 2020), original ballets Madame Butterfly [2019], La Morte Amoureuse [2018] & Cleopatra [2017] (K-Ballet, Tokyo), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Lookingglass), , Music Man (Goodman Theater), Rusalka (Metropolitan Opera, NYC, premiere 2-3-17), Into The White Night (RanSpace, Shanghai), a new Christmas Carol (McCarter Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost, Odyssey & Timon of Athens (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Concealed Treasure (Theatre Above, Shanghai), Lookingglass Alice (Lookingglass & regional theatre tours), Clybourne Park (Walter Kerr Theater/Broadway- 2012 Tony nomination-Best Set Design, 2012 Tony Winner-Best Play), White Snake (Wuzhen Theatre Festival/China, Guthrie, Old Globe, Goodman, Oregon Shakespeare, Berkeley Repertory, McCarter), Candide (Chicago, DC, Boston tour), Title and Deed (sets & lights, Lookingglass), and Danai Gurira’s The Convert (Princeton, LA, Chicago tour/ Ovation Award-Best Set Design).
Upcoming projects include) Look Who’s Talking Back (National Theater, Taipei, Taiwan), The Odyssey (Lookingglass, Chgo), and a Eurydice (Metropolitan Opera, NYC).
His work as a director include his 2016 Lookingglass directing debut production of Blood Wedding (which he also designed sets for) and his 2011 production of Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris at Two River Theater in New Jersey.
He has worked at numerous regional theaters across the country including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York Shakespeare Festival (in Central Park), Lincoln Center, The Public Theater, Playwright’s Horizon, Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Long Wharf, McCarter, Huntington, Goodman, Steppenwolf, Oregon Shakespeare, A.C.T. (San Francisco), Berkeley Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, The Guthrie Theater, the Denver Center for the Arts and Portland Center Stage among many others.
Opera designs include Rusalka (Metropolitan Opera/NYC), Lucia Di Lammermoor (Metropolitan Opera/NYC, LaScala/ Milan, Tokyo/ Japan), La Sonnambula (Metropolitan Opera/ NYC), Merry Widow(Lyric Opera/ Chgo), Ainadmar (Tanglewood Music Festival, LA Philharmonic), Phillip Glass’ Galileo Galilei (NYC, London, Chgo) and Suor Angelica / Gianna Schicchi (SF Opera Center).
Internationally, his Pacific Overtures traveled to the Donmar Warehouse in London (2003 Olivier Winner- Best Musical). His work has also been seen in Japan, Italy, Australia, China, the UK and Canada.
Mr. Ostling was a tenured Associate Professor at Northwestern University in Chicago from 2003-2011 in the MFA program. He continued to teach par-time thru 2017. Before that he was a tenured professor at Loyola University in Chicago from 1997-2003.
For a complete listing of my design work, press ...
