Process of Designing a Show

Make it Sparkle Video with Rachel Hauck
Professional Set Designer

6:15 (runtime)

Director’s Notes

In this segment, Rachel discusses

• The beginning of her career and how she got started.
  

• Her influences and teachers and the things she learned from them.
  

• The research process and important questions for starting a show's set design.
  

• How to best represent the vision of the director and writer on the stage.

About Rachel Hauck

Rachel Hauck is a set designer based in New York. She designs new plays and musicals on Broadway, Off Broadway and for regional theater, frequently working on world premiere productions. 

Rachel recently designed the Broadway production of Latin History for Morons written by and staring John Leguizamo, Hadestown for the National Theater in London, and Othello and Twelfth Night for the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park. She also regularly designs for such Off Broadway theaters as the Public Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons and the Signature Theatre as well as for ground breaking downtown companies such as Ars Nova and Soho Rep. Ms Hauck has also designed extensively for regional theater including an extended relationship with the Oregon Shakespeare festival and the Mark Taper Forum, and work at the Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage and the McCarter Theater among many, many others. 

Rachel was the Resident Set Designer at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference for ten years. As such, she worked with more than 70 playwrights, focusing on their work dramaturgically from a design perspective. For many years, she was also a regular designer at the Mark Taper Forum’s New Work Festival in Los Angeles. She has taught at Brown University, Vassar College, NYU, Cal Arts and currently teaches at Princeton University. She remains dedicated new play development and the education of young artists, and continues to work with students at the National Theater Institute at the O’Neill whenever possible.