Victor En Yu Tan is a Professor of Lighting Design at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has designed over 500 productions since his 1974 New York City professional lighting debut on the world premiere of Frank Chin’s Year of the Dragon (American Place Theatre).
Recent designs include Sheila’s Day (Lincoln Center Education Institute); Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike (Center Stage-Baltimore); Romeo and Juliet, Death of a Salesman, Carousel, Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike, The Whipping Man, Broke-ology, and The Borderland (Kansas City Repertory Theatre); the premiere of Kansas City Swing! (Crossroads Theatre); Black Pearl Sings! (Virginia Stage, Capital Rep and ETC Santa Barbara); the premiere of Resurrection (Arena Stage and Hartford Stage; the premiere of The Ballad of Emmett Till (Goodman Theatre); the premiere of Train to 2010 (Crossroads Theatre); the 20th anniversary revival of Sheila’s Day (Hartford Stage); the premiere of On Naked Soil (Theatre for the New City); and Stick Fly (McCarter Theatre).
In New York City, as a senior artist for the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, he designed over 40 shows including the premiere of Rangoon, the premiere of Imelda, the 2008 revival of Shogun Macbeth, the 2007 revival of Joy Luck Club, and 2005 revival of Cambodia Agonistes.
He has designed over 25 shows for the New York Shakespeare Festival including the premieres of George Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, Ntosake Shange’s For Colored Girls, and David Henry Hwang’s Dance and the Railroad. In New York City, his Broadway and off-Broadway credits include As You Like It, Macbeth, and Romeo And Juliet in rotating repertory (Belasco Theater); Joy Luck Club (TheatreFour); Sheila’s Day (New Victory Theatre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music); Noa Ain’s opera Trio (Carnegie Hall); and the Yiddish musicals, The Golden Land and On Second Avenue.
His lighting design for Machinal (Kansas City Repertory Theatre) was selected to represent American designers at the Scenography Exposition, Prague Quadrennial 2003. His awards include the Obie Award (NYC Off-Broadway) for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design, the Villager Award (NYC Off-Off-Broadway) for outstanding Lighting Design of Before She Was Even Born, the Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre for the lighting design of The Colored Museum, Kansas City Drama Desk Award for Best lighting Design of The Deputy, The Sarasota & Manatee Critics’ SAMMY Award for Best Lighting Design of Nicholas Nickleby Pt. I & II, and the Maharam Citation for Lighting Design from the American Theatre Wing for Ntozake Shange’s A Photograph.
| Credit Type | Production | Season |
|---|---|---|
| Lighting Designer | Fraternity | 1983-84 Season |
| Lighting Designer | Boogie Woogie & Booker T | 1986-87 Season |
| Lighting Designer | Trinity | 1987-88 Season |