Rouben Ter-Arutunian, America’s leading theatrical and ballet set designer

Film and theatre impresario par excellence John Housman wrote in “Unfinished Business”: “The main responsibility for designing our physical productions fell upon a discovery of Lincoln Kirstein’s—a slender, elegant young man with the resonant Armenian name of Rouben Ter-Arutunian.

He was born in Russia and reared in Germany; with his shaven head and the dark, liquid eyes of a doe, he resembled a figure in Persian miniature….he came up with a model that was startling in its simplicity and beauty and formed the basis of what came to be known as the ‘Festival Stage.’” Ter-Arutunian eventually became America’s leading theatrical and ballet set designer.

By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto