Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase

OPERA America is proud to highlight the 2010-2011 finalists of the Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase, a bi-annual program offered as part of OPERA America’s continuing effort to foster emerging opera artists. The showcase, made possible through support from the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund, has been established to bring promising talent to the attention of the field and connect promising directors and designers with those who are in a position to advance their careers.

Twenty-seven director-driven teams submitted proposals for consideration in this second showcase round. Four finalist teams were selected by panelists Donald Eastman, designer; Kevin Patterson, general director, Austin Lyric Opera; Tazewell Thompson, stage director; and Diane Wondisford, producing director, Music-Theatre Group. As opera is an intrinsically collaborative art form, the projects chosen were selected not only because they demonstrate the requisite creativity and skill, but because they display true collaboration, creative vibrancy and collective passion.

Each team will be given $2,000 to be used toward further research and the production of more comprehensive renderings and models. Up to two representatives from each finalist team will receive travel, lodging and registration to attend Opera Conference 2011 in Boston, MA to present their proposals to opera producers at a special session and to network with conference attendees.

Robert L. B. Tobin was heir to one of the largest family fortunes in Texas. Tobin admitted to being a frustrated theater designer with a need to be creative. All through his academic years and early adulthood, he collected rare theatrical volumes, etchings, engravings and drawings. At the time of his 50th birthday in 1984, The Tobin Wing of the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX, was constructed specifically to provide a museum setting for the theater arts. As such, the wing houses Robert Tobin's extensive collection of over 20,000 original models, scenic and costume designs, as well as some 8,000 rare and illustrated books. The Tobin Theatre Arts Fund exists to stimulate public interest in the art of the theater designer through a far-reaching program of exhibitions, lectures, expansion of the collection at the McNay and to provide broad-based access to this collection. In its continuing effort to promote the art of the designer, the Fund also sponsors programs that offer students an opportunity to exhibit their work. In addition, it funds visiting artists' programs to area colleges and universities, and assists in the publication of monographs on individual designers.