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Michael Gottlieb
Lighting Design
Biography
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www.mgld.com
MICHAEL GOTTLIEB
Emmy Award winner Michael Gottlieb designs lighting for theatre, opera, dance, television, corporate events and
architecture. His approach benefits from work in widely divergent styles, scales of production and theatrical disciplines, and
affords him a unique ability to create, with his collaborators, a distinct visual vocabulary for each project.
Mr. Gottlieb's theatre credits range from the classics to over 100 new plays and musicals. His work is most frequently seen in
New York City, on commercial Off-Broadway productions such as Class Mothers '68 (starring Priscilla Lopez), The
Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Maybe Baby It's You (Soho Playhouse), The Last Session
(47th Street Theatre), The Impostor (starring Austin Pendleton and Calista Flockhart), Only Heaven (music by Ricky Ian
Gordon, based on poetry by Langston Hughes), and S. S. Glencairn - Four Plays of the Sea (Willow Cabin Theatre
Company). Several of these works were recorded for their historical merit by the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive of the
Lincoln Center Library.
Active in the development of new work, and a member of the critically acclaimed Adobe Theatre Company since 1999, Mr.
Gottlieb is a frequent collaborator with its artistic director, Jeremy Dobrish. Their work is frequently noted in the press for its
distinct theatricality.
Mr. Gottlieb's work in opera includes the recreation of Richard Pilbrow’s lighting for Sir Peter Hall's production of The Magic
Flute (Los Angeles, Seattle and Washington National Opera companies), with scenic and costume designs by the British
cartoonist and illustrator Gerald Scarfe. In New York, he designed the premiere of Jonathan Sheffer's Blood on the Dining
Room Floor, based on the life and works of Gertrude Stein, produced Off-Broadway by the WPA Theatre. He also designed
Suor Angelica for Rockland Opera, and Rigoletto in Brooklyn's Prospect Park for Maestro Anton Coppola.
In dance, he is a frequent collaborator with choreographer Mark Jarecke. As Mr. Jarecke's resident designer, Mr. Gottlieb
toured with the company, whose repertory includes his designs for Endo, Synesthesia, Water Candy Fruit, Auto-Publik
and Dendron. Additionally, he has designed for such choreographers as Ani Schaeffer, Paige Martin, D.D. Dorvillier, Laura
Staton and the Headlong Dance Theater. For New York's Danspace Project, he designed The Dance X Project, a
collaboration between Generation-X choreographers and fashion designers (including Betsey Johnson, Susan Lazar, Cynthia
Rowley and Jussara Lee).
Mr. Gottlieb's parallel career in television began in 1995 as lighting director for taped remotes on NBC's Saturday Night
Live. Lighting for television in its most theatrical venue, his subjects range from puppets, to Ultimatte effects, to completely
produced sketches, featuring celebrities such as Robert DeNiro, Alec Baldwin, Christopher Walken, and Elle Macpherson. He
regularly works on Last Call With Carson Daly, The Today Show, NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams, Dateline,
and many entertainment and news specials for NBC. He has lit the ice rink in Rockefeller Center, the coverage of the
National Puerto Rican Day Parade, numerous musical acts including David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, James Taylor, Lenny
Kravitz, Britney Spears, and the senatorial debate between Rick Lazio and Hillary Clinton. His extensive experience in
location lighting for video led to his association with the Lighting Design Group, for which he was Supervising Lighting
Designer for more than twenty NBC venue commentator positions at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. He received an
Emmy Award for his work on the Olympics, and was additionally nominated for Democracy Plaza (the 2004
Presidential Elections) and Christmas in Rockefeller Center segments featuring Tony Bennett, Kenny Chesney,
Christina Aguilera and Sting. His freelance television work also includes network upfronts, commercials, infomercials
and corporate training videos.
Mr. Gottlieb's work in architectural lighting includes the box office and administrative areas of New York's Film Forum, where
he serves as lighting consultant. He designed lighting for the Soho bar SPY, and worked with the firm Focus Lighting on such
projects as the Mohegan Sun Casino (Uncasville, CT) and the All-Star Cafe (NYC). With Lucida Corporation, he worked on the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library (Simi Valley, CA)
For corporate and institutional clients, Mr. Gottlieb's credits include benefits, special events, parties, and industrials. Such
"one-nighters" featured concert performances by Patti LuPone, Ray Charles, Joan Rivers, and Henny Youngman. Among the
organizations and corporations for which Mr. Gottlieb has designed lighting are Morgan Stanley, Bristol-Meyers Squibb,
Janssen Pharmacia, Novo Nordisk, Pizza Hut, the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, the James Beard Foundation,
Pfizer, Dean Witter, Avon, Mack Truck, Lotus, Jack Morton Worldwide, and Advanstar Communications.
Mr. Gottlieb's overseas credits include lighting supervision for The Cave, a music-video opera by Steve Reich and Beryl
Korot, which premiered in Vienna in 1993 and toured internationally through 1996. Additionally, he supervised the lighting
for the European leg of Laurie Anderson's 1995 Stories From the Nerve Bible tour.
Mr. Gottlieb began his career as an assistant to the world's most prominent lighting designers, including Richard Pilbrow,
Peter Kaczorowski, Dennis Parichy, Jason Kantrowitz, Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, Jane Reisman, the late Craig Miller,
and most significantly, the late Richard Nelson. Over a seven-year period as Mr. Nelson's assistant and then associate, Mr.
Gottlieb worked on such Broadway productions as The Secret Rapture, Shimada, The Flowering Peach, and Comedy
Tonight, as well as the Off-Broadway shows Return to the Forbidden Planet, Catch Me If I Fall, and Twelfth Night in
Central Park, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Gregory Hines and Jeff Goldblum. Mr. Gottlieb was associate lighting designer for the
Off-Broadway musical Zombie Prom, Richard Nelson's last design in New York. During rehearsals for this complicated
production, Mr. Nelson's illness was discovered, requiring Mr. Gottlieb to assume complete responsibility for the lighting from
the second technical rehearsal through the second week of previews. The satisfaction that the director, the management,
and Mr. Nelson himself later expressed with the work represents a milestone in Mr. Gottlieb's career.
Mr. Gottlieb graduated with honors from Vassar College, where he received the Molly Thacher Kazan Prize for Excellence in
the Theatre Arts, and a Dana Fellowship. He studied design, art, and architectural history at The British and European
Studies Group in London, where he apprenticed with lighting designer Benny Ball. After graduating college, he became the
youngest person ever to be accepted into the prestigious United Scenic Artists Lighting Design Internship Program. In 1991,
Mr. Gottlieb was one of ten finalists for a National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Designer Fellowship. His work has been
featured in several production-related articles in Theatre Crafts (now Entertainment Design) and Lighting Dimensions
magazines, and he was the subject of a "Tyro Talent" designer profile in the February 1998 issue of Theatre Crafts
International. He lives in New York City.
File updated: 05/07/12, 07:15 PM CDT
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