Scott Pask
Quick Facts
Biography
Scott Pask is an American scenic designer. He has worked primarily on stage productions in the United States, on Broadway and Off-Broadway, and in regional theatre, as well as in the United Kingdom. He won the Tony Award for his work on The Pillowman, The Coast of Utopia and The Book of Mormon.
Early life and education
Pask was born and raised in Yuma, Arizona with his twin brother Bruce. Pask earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Arizona and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University. Bruce is a noted stylist and men's fashion director at T: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Career
His Broadway credits include Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Urinetown, The Coast of Utopia, The Vertical Hour, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, Kiki and Herb: Alive on Broadway, The Wedding Singer, La Cage aux Folles, Amour, Sweet Charity, Little Shop of Horrors, Take Me Out, Nine, The Pillowman, and A Steady Rain. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut with his design for Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.
Pask designed the original production of The Pillowman and its subsequent UK tour for the National Theatre. Additional credits include On an Average Day (West End) and Tales From Hollywood (Donmar Warehouse) both directed by John Crowley; Bash (Almeida Theatre, New York, Los Angeles, and Showtime); Albert Herring (Opera North U.K); The Underpants, The Bomb-itty of Errors, The Donkey Show (NY, London, Edinburgh, Cambridge), Slanguage, The Gimmick, Love's Fowl, The Beginning of August, Refuge. Also: Baltimore Center Stage, Alliance Theater, South Coast Repertory, Seattle Rep, The Old Globe, ACT, Yale Repertory Theater, Walker Arts Center, Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto, BAM and Williamstown. He also designed the original scenic design for the debut of Johnny Baseball at the American Repertory Theatre Spring 2010.
Of his work, Ben Brantley in The New York Times wrote: "Scott Pask’s exposed-wall set is the perfect playground for a world in which imagination (aided by chemical substances) provides the décor." in reference to Hair. Pask has said of his work "I do love abstracted places, especially one where I can fill it with so much texture,"
Pask designed the holiday snow globes for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS for 2005 and 2009.
Awards and nominations
Pask won the 1999 Lucille Lortel Award and Henry Hewes Award for his work on The Mineola Twins and the 2001 Bessie Award for Verge.
He has been nominated for the Tony Award for Scenic Design of a Musical for Pal Joey (2009); Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play for Les Liaisons Dangereuses (2008). He won the Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for The Book of Mormon (2011), and Best Scenic Design of a Play for The Coast of Utopia (parts 1,2, and 3) (2007) and The Pillowman (2005). He won the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Set Design of a Play, for Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Coast of Utopia.