Martin Aronstein
Encyclopedia
Martin Aronstein was an American
lighting designer
whose Broadway
career spanned thirty-six years.
Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
, Aronstein attended Queens College
in Flushing
, New York
. In 1957, following a performance sponsored by the New York Shakespeare Festival
, he approached a backstage worker and asked if he could help break down the set. He apprenticed with the festival and worked there for five years before being named its principal lighting designer, a position he held until 1976. He also served as the resident lighting supervisor at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
.
Aronstein made his Broadway debut as the lighting assistant for Arturo Ui
in 1963. Additional Broadway credits include The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
, Tiny Alice
, The Impossible Years
, Cactus Flower, The Royal Hunt of the Sun
, How Now, Dow Jones
, George M!
, Promises, Promises
, Play It Again, Sam
, The Gingerbread Lady
, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death
, The Incomparable Max
, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little
, My Fat Friend
, The Ritz
, The Grand Tour
, Noises Off
, Benefactors
, and The Twilight of the Golds
.
Aronstein was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design
five times and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design
once but failed to win either prize.
In 1977 Aronstein relocated to Southern California
, where he designed for the Mark Taper Forum
, the Ahmanson Theater, and the Pasadena Playhouse
on a regular basis. He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
for A Month in the Country
in 1983 and Passion
in 1984, and in 1996 he was awarded the Circle’s Angstrom Award for career achievement in theatrical lighting. He was also an adjunct professor at the theater school of the University of Southern California
, and designed for the San Francisco Ballet
, the St. Louis Municipal Opera
, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
.
Aronstein died of heart failure at Valley Presbyterian Hospital
in Van Nuys, California. He was survived by life partner Lawrence Metzler.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lighting designer
Lighting designer
The role of the lighting designer within theatre is to work with the director, choreographer, set designer, costume designer, and sound designer to create an overall 'look' for the show in response to the text, while keeping in mind issues of visibility, safety and cost...
whose Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
career spanned thirty-six years.
Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Its area code is 413. Its ZIP code is 01201...
, Aronstein attended Queens College
Queens College, City University of New York
Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...
in Flushing
Flushing, Queens
Flushing, founded in 1645, is a neighborhood in the north central part of the City of New York borough of Queens, east of Manhattan.Flushing was one of the first Dutch settlements on Long Island. Today, it is one of the largest and most diverse neighborhoods in New York City...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. In 1957, following a performance sponsored by the New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
, he approached a backstage worker and asked if he could help break down the set. He apprenticed with the festival and worked there for five years before being named its principal lighting designer, a position he held until 1976. He also served as the resident lighting supervisor at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
.
Aronstein made his Broadway debut as the lighting assistant for Arturo Ui
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a play by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, originally written in 1941...
in 1963. Additional Broadway credits include The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore is a play written by Tennessee Williams.It debuted at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, in July 1962. Its first American production was in January 1963, but it only ran for 69 performances at the Morosco Theatre in New York. Reviews of the play...
, Tiny Alice
Tiny Alice
Tiny Alice, a three act play written by Edward Albee, premiered on Broadway at the Billy Rose Theatre on December 29, 1964.- Billy Rose Theatre production :...
, The Impossible Years
The Impossible Years
The Impossible Years is a 1965 comedy play by Robert Fisher and Arthur Marx, son of famed comedian Groucho Marx.The comedy revolves around Jonathan Kingsley, a teaching psychiatrist at the local university, his wife, and their two teenaged daughters...
, Cactus Flower, The Royal Hunt of the Sun
The Royal Hunt of the Sun
The Royal Hunt of the Sun is a 1964 play by Peter Shaffer that portrays the destruction of the Inca empire by conquistador Francisco Pizarro.-Premiere:...
, How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones is a musical comedy by Academy Award winner Elmer Bernstein, Tony Award nominee Carolyn Leigh and Max Shulman. The original Broadway production opened in December 1967. A critically acclaimed revised version premiered in August 2009....
, George M!
George M!
George M! is a Broadway musical based on the life of George M. Cohan, the biggest Broadway star of his day who was known as "The Man Who Owned Broadway." The book for the musical was written by Michael Stewart, John Pascal, and Francine Pascal. Music and lyrics were, of course, by George M...
, Promises, Promises
Promises, Promises
Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...
, Play It Again, Sam
Play It Again, Sam
Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 film written by and starring Woody Allen, originally entitled Aspirins for Three. The film was directed by Herbert Ross, which is unusual, as Allen usually directs all his own written work....
, The Gingerbread Lady
The Gingerbread Lady
The Gingerbread Lady is a 1970 play by Neil Simon, written specifically for actress Maureen Stapleton, who won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance....
, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death
Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death
Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death is a musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Melvin Van Peebles. The musical contains some material also on three of Van Peebles' albums, Br'er Soul, Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack, some of which were yet to come...
, The Incomparable Max
The Incomparable Max
The Incomparable Max is a play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. It is based on the stories Enoch Soames and A.V. Laider in Seven Men by Max Beerbohm....
, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little
And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little
And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little is an American play written by Paul Zindel and published by Dramatists Play Service.The story surrounds three sisters: Catherine, an alcoholic; Anna, a hypochondriac and Ceil, an attention-starved socialite.-History:...
, My Fat Friend
My Fat Friend
My Fat Friend is a play by Charles Laurence.The comedy is an ugly duckling tale about an overweight young woman who attracts the attention of a potential suitor...
, The Ritz
The Ritz (play)
The Ritz is a play by Terrence McNally. Actress Rita Moreno won a Tony Award for her performance as Googie Gomez in the 1975 Broadway production, which she and many others of the original cast reprised in a 1976 film version directed by Richard Lester....
, The Grand Tour
The Grand Tour (musical)
The Grand Tour is a musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.Based on S. N. Behrman's play Jacobowsky and the Colonel, the story concerns an unlikely pair. S.L. Jacobowsky, a Polish-Jewish intellectual, has purchased a car he cannot drive....
, Noises Off
Noises Off
Noises Off is a 1982 play by English playwright Michael Frayn. The idea for it was born in 1970, when Frayn was standing in the wings watching a performance of Chinamen, a farce that he had written for Lynn Redgrave...
, Benefactors
Benefactors (play)
Benefactors is a 1984 play by Michael Frayn. It is set in the 1960s and concerns an idealistic architect David and his wife Jane and their relationship with the cynical Colin and his wife Sheila. David is attempting to build some new homes to replace the slum housing of Basuto Road and is gradually...
, and The Twilight of the Golds
The Twilight of the Golds
The Twilight of the Golds is a play by Jonathan Tolins. After fifteen previews, the Broadway theatre production, directed by Arvin Brown, opened on October 21, 1993 at the Booth Theatre, where it ran for 29 performances. The cast included Jennifer Grey as Suzanne, Raphael Sbarge as David, and David...
.
Aronstein was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design
Tony Award for Best Lighting Design
This is a list of the winners of the Tony Award for Best Lighting Design in a play or musical, first presented in 1970. In 2005 the category was divided with each genre represented separately.-1970s:* 1970: Jo Mielziner – Child's Play...
five times and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design
Drama Desk Award
The Drama Desk Awards, which are given annually in a number of categories, are the only major New York theater honors for which productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway compete against each other in the same category...
once but failed to win either prize.
In 1977 Aronstein relocated to Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, where he designed for the Mark Taper Forum
Mark Taper Forum
The Mark Taper Forum is a 739 seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles...
, the Ahmanson Theater, and the Pasadena Playhouse
Pasadena Playhouse
The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic performing arts venue located 39 S El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engagements each year.-History:...
on a regular basis. He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards is an annual awards program presented by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle . Established in 1969, the awards recognize excellence in theatre in the Greater Los Angeles Area....
for A Month in the Country
A Month in the Country (play)
A Month in the Country is a comedy in five acts by Ivan Turgenev. It was written in France between 1848 and 1850 and was first published in 1855...
in 1983 and Passion
Passion (play)
Passion Play is a 1981 play by British playwright Peter Nichols dealing with adultery and betrayal. It was originally intended to open the Royal Shakespeare Company's new Barbican Theatre but was produced by them at the London's Aldwych Theatre in 1981...
in 1984, and in 1996 he was awarded the Circle’s Angstrom Award for career achievement in theatrical lighting. He was also an adjunct professor at the theater school of the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, and designed for the San Francisco Ballet
San Francisco Ballet
The San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. SFB is the first professional ballet company in the United States...
, the St. Louis Municipal Opera
The Muny
The Muny, short for The Municipal Theatre Association of St. Louis, is an outdoor musical theatre, located in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri...
, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
.
Aronstein died of heart failure at Valley Presbyterian Hospital
Valley Presbyterian Hospital
Valley Presbyterian Hospital is a 350-bed hospital located in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. Architect William Pereira designed the original 1958 building. Valley Presbyterian is one of the largest acute care hospital in central San Fernando Valley. The facility specializes in maternal and...
in Van Nuys, California. He was survived by life partner Lawrence Metzler.