Ian Garrett is a producer, lighting designer, administrator, and educator dedicated to innovative arts infrastructure. He is the co-founder and director of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) and Assistant Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University in Toronto.
As a leader in the conversation on sustainability in the arts, Garrett has spoken on arts and the environment, arts infrastructure, and new models of training at conferences hosted by St. Louis University, Live Design International, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), Dance/USA, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Americans for the Arts, and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). In 2007, he received the Richard E. Sherwood Award for emerging theater artists from the Center Theater Group (CTG) for the integration of ecologically sustainable practice into theater production. In 2009 and 2010 respectively, Garrett traveled to COP15 in Copenhagen and COP16 in Cancun to document the artistic responses to these global climate talks. With the CSPA, he has been featured in American Theatre, DramaBiz, and on Inhabitat.com.
As a producer, Garrett worked on the premier of Richard Foreman and Michael Gordon’s What to Wear at REDCAT and produced the Prague tour for Torry Bend’s puppet adaptation of Aimee Bender’s Loser. He has produced dozens of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe including Kristina Wong's Going Green the Wong Way, Marsian De Lellis’ Growing Up Linda, Katie Shook and Erik Ehn’s One Eye Gone, and At Sundown—a physical theater piece on aging and memory that he initiated. In Los Angeles, he produced the hit Gogol Project with the Rogue Artists Ensemble and Leiris/Picasso with Brimmer Street Theatre Company, both at the Bootleg Theater. In Houston, he produced Week 42 of Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days / 365 Plays. And, He was an associate producer on The Medea Project, a cross-cultural production of Medea in Athens and Los Angeles. Garrett maintains a design practice focused on lighting, with work in scenic and video design. He served as the lighting curator for Scenofest at the Prague Quadrennial, and is the resident designer for the Indy Convergence, an annual artistic open-space in Indianapolis. He received the 2006 LA Weekly Theater Award for best lighting for Permanent Collection at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, and he was the lighting designer for Song of Extinction with Moving Arts, which won the 2008 LA Weekly Theater Award for Production of the Year. Recent work includes designs for Kristina Wong‘s tour of Cat Lady (DiverseWorks, ODC, NPN Annual Meeting: Tampa) and The 2011 and 2012 Company Creation Festivals (Son of Semele Ensemble). Select credits include: Enternal Thou (Matthew McCray at the Atwater Theater), Hyperbole: Origins (Rogue Artists Ensemble at [Inside] the Ford), On Emotion (Son of Semele Ensemble), Speech and Debate (Blank Theatre Company), and others. He was part of the lighting team for the Crimson Collective’s Ascension, a 150’ wide, origami-style crane sculpture at the 2010 Coachella Music Festival. In Houston, he designed on the veranda at the Alden Hotel for a Houston Grand Opera O.N. event and in the DiverseWorks Gallery for Claude Wampler’s PERFORMANCE (career ender) installation. Garrett has previously served as the Executive Director of the Fresh Arts Coalition, an arts service organization focused on awareness and marketing in Houston, TX, and as consultant and staff for the LA Stage Alliance, a regional arts service organization serving more than 350 non-profit performing arts companies in Southern California. He has also worked at Stages Repertory Theatre and DiverseWorks in Houston and the Will Geer Theatricum Botancium in Topanga, CA.
For four years, Garrett taught in the School of Theater at CalArts, including courses on production and management technology and sustainable practice. He has also lead communications for the School of Theater, developing its web identity and digital infrastructure. He continues to produce their annual Edinburgh Program, bringing student and alumni work to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Garrett received dual MFAs in Lighting Design and Producing from CalArts, and has a BA in Architectural Studies and Art History from Rice University. More is on his and the CSPA's websites.
back to Board of Trustees
