Art Restart

Art Restart


dots: three visionary scenic designers swap individual plaudits for the creativity and security of a business partnership

April 24, 2023

Perhaps the hottest ticket on Broadway right now is to the starry revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s play “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” starring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan. Should you be lucky enough to score that ticket, you will find an unusual credit in the Playbill: scenic design by dots.

Barely two years old, dots is a collective of three talented international designers who decided soon after earning their MFA’s at NYU to create a unique partnership. They are Andrew Moerdyk, who hails from South Africa; Kimie Nishikawa, born in Japan; and Santiago Orjuela-Laverde, a native of Colombia.

Their partnership, truly unique in the American theater, is clearly paying off. Not only are they about to make their Broadway debut at a very early stage in their respective careers but their work has also been seen in some of the highest-profile theatrical projects of recent months, including “Dark Disabled Stories” at the Public Theater and Elevator Repair Service’s “Seagull.”

In this episode, the three designers explain how they developed the initial idea for their partnership during the pandemic lockdown and describe how the stability the collaboration provides more than makes up for no longer seeing their individual names in the production credits.


https://designbydots.com/