Natalie Robin

A headshot of Natalie Robin
Faculty

Theater Design & Technology (BFA)

Natalie Robin (she/her) has been program head of UArts’ Theater Design and Technology program since 2017. She is a lighting designer of live performance who believes that design is dramaturgy and is interested in how the generative text for work can be found in movement as much as in language. 

Biography

Natalie Robin holds a BA in English and Theater Arts from Columbia University, where she discovered lighting design, and an MFA in Lighting Design from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she developed her craft. Collaborators who have shaped her work include Daniel Aukin, Michelle Boulé, Jessica Brater, Motl Didner, Lenore Doxsee, Meg Foley, David Gurçay-Morris, Miguel Gutierrez, David Herskovits, Carolyn Mraz, Opera House Arts, Polybe + Seats, Ben Pryor, Peter Richards, Target Margin Theater and many others.

Robin also loves musicals. Prior to UArts, she taught at Alfred University in New York; Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; and New York University, among other institutions. She engages with design students by deconstructing the traditional capitalist, hierarchical, ego-driven collaborative structures. 

A large room lit with yellow, green and mostly pink, with pink sheets draped over large wooden frames standing throughout the room. Two people are sitting on the floor in the foreground.
“The undergird,” Natalie Robin

Experience

  • Robin’s recent notable designs include

    • Dionysus Was Such a Nice Man at the Wilma Theater (Philadelphia); 

    • Awake and Sing at Quintessence Theater Group (Philadelphia); 

    • The Sorceress for the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene (New York City);

    • White at Danspace Project (New York City) and The Monomyth at the Chocolate Factory Theater (New York City), both choreographed by Michelle Boulé; 

    • The undergird at Icebox Project Space (Philadelphia), choreographed by Meg Foley; and 

    • The Seagull on Ames Farm for Opera House Arts (Stonington, Maine).  

  • Her most recent collaboration with choreographer Meg Foley, FIXING, premiered at the site-specific performance festival FORMATIONS, a part of the 2019 Prague Quadrennial.  

  • Robin has been a faculty member or guest artist at Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York), Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania), Hofstra University (Hempstead, New York), University of New Haven (Connecticut),  NYU Tisch School of the Arts (New York City), Brooklyn College (New York City) and the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab (New York City). 

  • She has served as a visiting lecturer in theater at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts) and as a visiting assistant professor of performance design and technology at Alfred University (New York). 

  • At the 2019 Prague Quadrennial, Robin spoke on a panel titled Pedagogy: Conversations about teaching of performance design: views, perspectives and evolutions. Since then, she has been leading workshops titled Design is Dramaturgy: Approaching the Designer as Storyteller, to help educators engage with design students by deconstructing the traditional capitalist, hierarchical, ego-driven collaborative structure.

  • Robin is production manager of Applied Mechanics, a theater company in Philadelphia; associate producer and founding company member of Polybe + Seats in Brooklyn, New York; and associate artist of Target Margin Theater, also in Brooklyn. 

  • She was associate producer of American Realness, a New York City–based festival of contemporary performance curated by Ben Pryor/tbspMGMT, from 2012 to 2015. 

  • Robin also has extensive production management experience on dance and theater projects throughout the U.S. and internationally. 

  • She also serves as secretary/treasurer of United Scenic Artists, IATSE Local 829.

Explore Natalie Robin’s website. 

One actor in cream with their back to the camera and another in blue facing forward with his finger in the air. Both are in 18th-century costume.
“Tartuffe,” Natalie Robin

 

Awards & Accolades

  • Fixing, with Meg Foley and Maria Stokłosa, was selected for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial Formations Festival.

  • Robin was a University of the Arts President’s Fund for Excellence grantee for The undergird in 2018.