Eric is an associate professor of scenic design and the director of the Theatre Design & Production program. He designed Into the Woods and Rent last semester, and is designing Moscow, Cheryomushki for April, as well as teaching and mentoring B.F.A. students in the conservatory. Pippin is the 150th production Eric has designed, and his 50th design for a musical.
From 2008 to 2015, Eric’s work at the University of Iowa included serving as the director of graduate studies, head of the design program for the University of Iowa’s Department of Theatre Arts, and the vice-chair and chair of the Faculty Assembly. He designed twenty-eight productions for Theatre Arts, including Something Rotten!, Our Lady of 121st Street, Rome Sweet Rome (with the Q Brothers), American Idiot and Out of the Pan Into the Fire (with The Moving Company), and advised 180 student productions for the department. Eric was honored with the distinction of emeritus professor upon retirement. Eric has designed productions in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, with work touring to New York and beyond. He worked extensively in the Art Department for the Fox Live broadcast of Rent in Los Angeles. The production won the 2019 Emmy award for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special.
Other design credits include work as the Associate Designer for the USITT USA National Exhibition at the 2011 and 2007 Prague Quadrennial (and Steering Committee Member for the 2011 Exhibit); the associate designer for Ralph Lemon’s Scaffold Room (2014) and Come Home Charley Patton (2004); and designs for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (The Sound of Music), Madison Opera (four productions, including She Loves Me, A Little Night Music); Great River Shakespeare Festival (twenty-three productions, including Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Henry V, The Glass Menagerie), Utah Shakespearean Festival (thirteen productions, including Cyrano de Bergerac, Camelot, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, My Fair Lady, Born Yesterday), Skylight Opera Theatre, Fulton Theatre, American Players Theatre, California Shakespeare Festival, and San José Repertory Theatre.
Eric was the chair of the scenic design program for the University of Illinois at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts (2001 to 2008; ten designs, including Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, Metamorphoses, Nine, Twelfth Night); He was the resident scenic designer at PCPA Theaterfest (1995 to 2001; thirty-six designs, including The Servant of Two Masters, The Grapes of Wrath, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, The King & I, Cinderella, 42nd Street, On Golden Pond, The Lion in Winter, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The 1940’s Radio Hour).
He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Lewis & Clark College and a Master of Fine Arts from Ohio University. Eric is a member of the United Scenic Artists 829.
Visit www.rericstone.com to learn more.