The Library for the Performing Arts Acquires Robin Wagner’s Archive

Robin Wagner, a scenic designer who pioneered the use of automated scenery within Broadway, died May 29 at age 89. Renowned for his use of automation and large set designs, Wagner set the standard for contemporary designs in American theater. 

The Library for the Performing Arts acquired Wagner’s archives earlier this year featuring all of his sketches, paint elevations, and technical drawings for the sets he created throughout his career. The collection will be made available to the public at the Billy Rose Theatre Division at the Library for the Performing Arts once it is processed.

Wagner was a freelance stage set designer, working in San Francisco between 1953-1959, and in New York from 1959. He designed 55 Broadway sets, including Hair (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), A Chorus Line (1975), Dreamgirls (1981), Jelly’s Last Jam (1992), Angels in America (1993), and Victor/Victoria (1995). He received Tony Awards for his work on the Broadway productions of On the Twentieth Century (1978), City of Angels (1989), and The Producers (2001).

His career was the result of an early enthusiasm for theater. “I got into it simply because I loved theater,” he told Playbill in 2007. “When I started out—I was 20 years old—I hadn’t studied anything about theater. Then suddenly I began going and fell in love with it.” He started running a light board, an electronic device used in theatrical lighting design to control multiple stage lights at once, at the Theatre Arts Colony in San Francisco. He would eventually work under designer Ben Edwards and Oliver Smith before setting out on his own. Wagner’s big break in design was in the rock musical Hair, first performed off-Broadway in 1967, then on Broadway in 1968.

The role of a scenic designer is to collaborate with the actors, directors, and writers in order to uplift a production. By visually representing the themes of the story, a set design “is a kinetic sculpture that is constantly being manipulated to enhance the emotions and narrative of the story,” set designer and Tony-winner Beowulf Boritt said in his book Transforming Space Over Time.

"I think it’s crucial to figure out how the physical space can manipulate the viewer’s perception of the story," Boritt said in a conversation with Susan Stroman, theater director and choreographer. Wagner "moves scenery through space so beautifully, and that’s what stage design is to me: the transformation of the physical word—the scenic world—over the course of a play. The way the scenery affects the structure and pacing of a show is more important to me than what the details are or what it looks like."

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For any media requests email: alexteplitzky@nypl.org.