Lien recently spoke to Fordham News in Pope Auditorium—the same space where she designed a set for a Fordham production more than a decade ago—where she reflected on her career and the semester ahead.  

How did you get into set design? 

I studied architecture as an undergrad. At that time, I didn’t know much about theater, but I was interested in thinking about space in a more conceptual and sculptural way, and then applying that framework to an architectural context that exists in real space with real people. While exploring how architecture can tell a story, I stumbled into set design. 

What is it about set design that you’re passionate about?

Set design is really central to a theater production because it establishes a physical world. You can have this world that is like a laboratory for life. It can be completely surreal or fictional. It’s a way to create really complete worlds that might be something that you haven’t encountered before, something that’s a little strange—something that moves you. 

What’s something about set design that most people don’t know about? 

One of my favorite things about being a set designer is searching for materials that suit a performance’s design objective and intention. What kind of material can create this image or illusion within the needs and confines of a theatrical stage and performance? Most of the time, those materials are not designed for how I’m going to use them, so I get endlessly amused while looking for industrial materials that were made for a different purpose. For example, I might be looking for something that’s shiny but also lightweight, or something that looks like falling ash. One time, I created a huge pile of red sweeping compound for a production of Macbeth, which represented internal organs of the body. I wanted it to be red because, obviously, there are a lot of references to blood in Macbeth! 

What brought you to Fordham? 

I’ve actually worked here before. Sixteen years ago, I designed the set for a production of Top Girls, which was directed by Erica Schmidt. But it was May Adrales, the new head of the Fordham Theatre program, who brought me in as the Denzel Washington Chair. May and I have collaborated together on a number of projects in the past. One day, she emailed me and asked if I would do it, and I thought it sounded amazing. 

What are you most excited about doing here?

Fordham has really well-rounded and solid training in theater. I’ve met alumni who studied directing, design, and production, and everyone is really well-trained and grounded with a solid foundation in theater. I’m excited to challenge the notions of what theater and performance can be and really put design forward in that conversation. It’s something that I think a lot about in my own work, and I’m excited to share that with the Fordham community. 

I just had my first class today, and my students all seem amazing. Most of them are fourth-year students, so they have already been through foundational design training, and I have a good mix of students from different disciplines. I’m excited to have people with a range of experience because what I want to focus on in my class is not so much the nuts and bolts of set design, but the conceptual ideas behind design and how we can push the envelope. I have structured my course to focus on designing for performances through a more architectural lens because that’s my background and how I have approached design. I feel like the key components of thinking about space architecturally, like scale, volume, materials, light, and sequencing of spaces, are all things that you might learn in architecture school, but they’re also totally applicable to theater design. 

For their first project, my students need to find a site on campus and then conceive of a performance that might take place in that site. So I’m also training designers to think about being conceivers of an event, too, and not necessarily responding to a script. I want to treat design as more of a holistic theater-making discipline, as opposed to, here’s where I fit into it.

What professional projects are you working on? 

I just returned yesterday from opening an opera at the San Francisco Opera, which will run for the next few weeks. It’s a new John Adams opera, Antony and Cleopatra, using the Shakespeare play as the libretto, along with a few other sources. Now I’m in the midst of finalizing the design for a new revival of Sweeney Todd on Broadway, which has just been announced. 

How do you feel when you reflect on your life’s work? 

I feel incredibly blessed, lucky, and privileged to have been able to create projects on some of the scales that I have. Every project has a whole different set of circumstances, and therefore a whole new set of things to learn about and research. I’m excited to continue working in the avenues that I have worked in, as well as revisit my architectural roots and branch out into public art projects outside the theater. But mostly, I feel like this chair is such a gift and an opportunity to give back a little bit and to share some of what I’ve learned and encountered on my journey, even though there’s still a lot to learn. 

What advice do you have for the next generation of theater makers? 

What constitutes a performance? Space, event, and spectators, but that can happen anywhere … inside a theater, but also a street. As long as you have some action that’s happening and somebody who’s watching it, it could be defined as a form of theater. But what’s amazing about theater is that anything is possible. The reason that I transitioned from architecture to theater is that in the latter world, you have the magic of illusion. You can do things like figure out how to rig a piece of concrete so that it appears to be floating. So my advice to students is to be tenacious. Pursue the impossible, because in theater, anything is possible. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Like father like son. Right? Well, what if the son is autistic?

“When you have a son it’s like, ‘Finally, I get to make a better version of me,’” said Charles Jones, producer and director of a new documentary, Autistic Like Me, that takes a paternal perspective on parenting kids with autism.

The film will have its New York City premiere at the Lincoln Center campus’ Pope Auditorium this Thurs., Dec. 4 at 6:45 p.m. The event is free for Fordham students and faculty and, for everyone else, tickets are available here.

“We’re supposed to be the torch carriers, the protectors, the providers, and there are a lot of women who are uncomfortable when men can’t be that,” he said.

While a child’s autism affects everyone in the family, the father’s struggle often gets overlooked, said Jones, whose son has autism. His film explores a group of fathers as they open up to one another about the fear, disappointment, and ultimately the acceptance of a very different parenting experience than they had envisioned.

Jones, who is a Navy veteran, knows about being tough. He said that when faced with the reality of raising a child with autism, most of the men he interviewed tried to hide their feelings.

“Men typically hold it in and that does nothing but hurt the family,” he said. “But it takes a lot of strength to show how you’re feeling.”

Jones noted that most of the caretakers for autistic children are women, whether in the home or in the health care system. He added that current research has shown that autistic children benefit by interacting equally with men, but gender imbalances remain. Some men even shirk the responsibility of taking their kids to therapy because the rewards are barely perceptible.

“I hate to say it, but sometimes you’re going from below zero to just below zero—and there’s no carrot at the end,” he said. “But you have to do it. This is your child and there’s love there.”

The screening is being sponsored by Fordham’s Autism Speaks and Circle K, the college student arm of Kiwanis International.

https://vimeo.com/96078988

Yet the mineral used to manufacture these devices has contributed to years of war in the Congo, where conflict over natural resources continues to decimate the land as well as its citizens.

Helping to shed light on the issue, Fordham’s Theatre Program is running the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Ruined as the third show of its 2012-13 mainstage season. Written by Lynn Nottage, Ruined is the story of four women struggling to survive in war-torn Eastern Congo, a region rife with abuses of human rights, especially sexual violence.

On Feb. 22, a panel of Fordham professors gathered on the Pope Auditorium stage for a discussion on the complex issues raised by Nottage’s play.

The panel featured:

• Moderator Aimee Cox, Ph.D., assistant professor of performance and African and African American studies;
• Aseel Sawalha, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology;
• Fawzia Mustafa, Ph.D., associate professor of English and African and African American studies;
• And Evelyn Bush, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology.

With the militaristic set of Ruined providing a sinister backdrop for the panel, Cox explained that Eastern Congo provides 70 percent of the world’s supply of coltan, the mineral used in many electronic devices. The abundance of the mineral makes the Congo a magnet for civil conflict and corporate greed.

“In Ruined, we are compelled to question how a country that has been described as ‘the rape capital of the world’ becomes so through transnational capital flow and the exploitation of natural resources,” Cox said. “We are asked to consider how human life becomes devalued… [in part]through Western interest that believes that the right to trade is more powerful or valuable than the right to live.”

That capitalist mindset, Bush said, often pervades political discussion, seeps into media coverage, and then percolates down into public opinion. And though talk of independence from foreign oil has made headway in public discourse, the prospect of a similar outcome with coltan is dim.

“Coltan is the new oil,” Bush said. “It’s something that we’re building the entire infrastructure of our society around, so the stakes are incredibly high… And because of that, activism or movements in response are going to be very difficult.”

Meanwhile, as the war over resources drags on, civilians suffer. Hundreds of thousands of women have been caught up between warring factions since the conflict began in 1996. For Congolese women and girls of all ages, the threat of sexual violence is constant.

“In most wars, the rape of women is not for pleasure—it’s to punish the nation,” Sawalha said. “By contaminating the bodies of these women, the new generation that’s going to be produced because of it is contaminated as well.”

It leads us to ask why, in the face of overt violence, does the world not intervene, the panelists asked.

“We know an awful lot about what has happened and why,” Mustafa said. “But it continues. Nothing that we understand about this has stopped it from happening, even with the publicity, even with advocacy. It brings us back to the question of who benefits.

“You can pinpoint two culprits,” she continued. “One is the market as it functions right now, and the other is the ways in which patriarchy has become so horribly skewed in Africa.”

The panelists acknowledged that the evening’s discussions, as well as the play itself, do little to effect more than awareness and advocacy. Nevertheless, that is where justice must begin.

“It’s not about easy answers or coming to resolutions, but grappling with the various questions we find in the play,” Cox said.

Ruined continues this week on Feb. 27 through March 1 at 8 p.m. in Pope Auditorium. A post-show talkback exploring the artistic choices behind the play will take place on Feb. 28 in Pope Auditorium.

On April 10 and 11, Ruined playwright Lynn Nottage will be visiting both the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses to discuss her play.

For more information about Ruined and the Theatre Program’s mainstage season,read the article in Inside Fordham.

The machine models on display include touch screen, ballot-marking and optical scan devices, and are manufactured by Avante, Election Systems & Software, Diebold, and Sequoia Voting Systems.  Once a vending contractor is chosen, New York City’s century-old lever voting machines, colloquially referred to as “900-pound gorillas,” are scheduled to begin being replaced by the time of the upcoming federal elections in 2008.

“The federal government is offering money to transform election machinery in all of the states,” said Joseph P. Muriana, Esq., associate vice president for government and urban affairs. “Both the public and the entire Fordham community are invited to come out and try these machines, and then comment on which they prefer that evening.”

Each vendor will conduct a half-hour presentation and make two machines available – one for a formal presentation and another for public testing.  One more public demonstration is scheduled for Jan. 22 in Brooklyn at Medgar Evers College.  Public hearings on the machines will be held Jan. 23 at the BOE offices at 42 Broadway.

The event is being sponsored by the Office of Government and Urban Affairs.

– Janet Sassi