About
Matt Saunders is a scenic designer, and a creator of new performance work based in Philadelphia. Mr. Saunders is a founding member, and Associate Artistic Director of the OBIE Award-Winning, experimental theatre company, New Paradise Laboratories. He has been involved in the creation of NPL’s work through both scenic design and performance for 20 years. This work has included The Fab 4 Reach the Pearly Gates, performed at P.S. 122 in NYC as well as the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Prom, a co-production with the Tony Award-Winning Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis and BATCH, at the 2007 Humana Festival for New American Plays at the Actor’s Theatre of Louisville. Matt’s design for NPL’s Fatebook, was selected for the United States’ professional pavilion at the prestigious Prague Quadrennial 2011. Outside of NPL, Saunders has designed over one hundred shows. His designs for Theater, Opera and Dance have been seen for Mark Taper Forum, The Guthrie Theater, Huntington Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, The Wilma Theater, Arden Theatre Company, Pig Iron Theatre Company, and The Philadelphia Theater Company among others. Mr. Saunders’ recent Off-Broadway work includes the world premiere of Futurity at Soho Rep and Ars Nova (with music by Cesar Alverez and the Lisps, directed by Sarah Benson), Good Person of Szechwan for the Foundry at the Public Theater (Directed by Lear deBessonet) The Tempest for the Public Theater at the Delacaorte (Directed by Lear deBessonet) and As You Like It for the Acting Company at The New Victory (Directed by Dan Rothenberg). Saunders’ recent designs for opera include: Janáček's Káťa Kabanová (Directed by Garry Hynes and Conducted by Anne Manson) as well as the world premiere of Angel’s Bone (Composed by Du Yun with libretto by Royce Vavrek). Regionally, Mr. Saunders recently designed the U.S. Premiere of Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem at the Wilma Theater (Directed by Blanka Zizka). Currently, Saunders is designing a world premiere opera, We Shall Not Be Moved, Directed and Choreographed by Bill T Jones. Moved will open at Opera Philadelphia in the Fall of 2017, and transfer to the Apollo Theater in NYC, as well as Hackney Empire Theatre in London UK. His current Off-Broadway work includes designing Suzan-Lori Parks’ revival of Venus at Signatrue Theatre Company, and the world premiere of Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau at Lincoln Center. Mr. Saunders is also collaborating with celebrated visual artist Carrie Mae Weems on a project titled Grace Notes, which will be a performance piece devised from Weems’ photographic work, contemplating the idea of “Grace” as exhibited in the face of oppression and adversity in relation to the African American experience. Grace Notes will be performed at the Kennedy Center in the Fall of 2017. Locally in Philadelphia, Mr. Saunders is designing the world premiere of Adapt!, a new play by Wilma Theater Artistic Director, Blanka Zizka, as well as Hello Blackout, a new devised work with his own company, New Paradise Laboratories. Mr. Saunders is a 2015 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University, a 2014 Pew Fellow, and holds an MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama. Matt Saunders is the Assistant Professor of Design in the Department of Theater at Swarthmore College.
