Riccardo Hernandez ('92) Promoted to Associate Professor Adjunct
September 11, 2020
Riccardo Hernández, who has been teaching full-time at the School since 2017, has been promoted to Associate Professor Adjunct and will continue in his role as Set Design Advisor at Yale Repertory Theatre.
Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Riccardo graduated from the School of Drama in 1992, and has designed scenery for more than 250 productions around the world.
Riccardo's field leadership is marked by the brilliance of his designs for such landmark theatrical events such as the Olivier Award-winning Caroline, or Change, TopDog/Underdog, Parade, Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk,The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, The America Play, and the Tony Award-winning revival of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, to name just a few--his most recent Broadway design is for Jagged Little Pill. His awards include the OBIE for Sustained Excellence, American Theater Wing Award, Henry Hewes Design Award, Princess Grace Statue and Grant, and Helen Hayes, Jeff, and Audelco Awards, among others.
He has worked on and off-Broadway and at every major nonprofit theater in the country, with more than 30 productions for the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater. Riccardo has also designed at Chicago Opera, English National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and Santa Fe Opera. His international credits include productions for the Abbey Theatre, Avignon Festival, Moscow Art Theatre, National Theatre of Great Britain, National Theatre of Norway, La Colline Théâtre Nationale and Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, Theatre Real in Madrid, and Theater an der Wien in Vienna.
In career marked by lasting collaborative relationships, Riccardo has worked again and again with some of the most influential artists of the last three decades, including Luis Alfaro, Arin Arbus, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Jo Bonney, Rachel Chavkin, Graciele Daniele, Ron Daniels, Phillip Glass, Mark Lamos, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Dianne Paulus, Hal Prince, Anna Deavere Smith, Daniel Sullivan, Julie Taymor, George C. Wolfe, and Mary Zimmerman. Here at Yale Rep, his notable collaborations with Liz Diamond, Rebecca Taichman, and Robert Woodruff resulted in memorable productions of plays by Suzan-Lori Parks, David Adjmi, Paula Vogel, Bernard-Marie Koltès, and Ingmar Bergman.
Dean James Bundy said, “Having had the benefit of working with him on Assassins in 2017, I know first-hand that Riccardo's erudition, imagination, and capacity for creative dialogue are unsurpassed. On top of that, his visionary zeal and generosity of spirit have enhanced students' training and brought greater visibility to the Design program in just a few short years. He has regularly drawn other field leaders into our classrooms, and in 2019, as a tireless advocate for his students, he conceived and executed a new format for our graduating designers to exhibit their designs to invited professionals in both New Haven and New York. Our community is fortunate, indeed, to have such a distinguished artist, so dedicated to teaching, in our midst.”