We along with Live Design and LDI are pleased to announce that video and graphic designer Adam J. Thompson will be the recipient of the 2023 USITT Rising Star Award. 

Established by LiveDesign/LDI in 2005, this annual award recognizes a young professional working in the disciplines of scenic, lighting, sound, or projection/video design. Thompson will be honored during USITT23.

Adam J. Thompson is a video and graphic designer working in in film, television, theatre, and digital narratives. He has worked previously as a creative director and a producer and is the Founding Artistic Director of The Deconstructive Theatre Project, a non-profit multimedia storytelling laboratory which he founded and led from 2006 - 2016.His work as a multimedia performance director and as a video and projection designer has been produced and presented off-Broadway, off off-Broadway, regionally, and on tour with companies and at venues that include New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, Atlantic Theatre Company, Theatre for a New Audience, La Mama, Ars Nova, HERE, The Flea, American Theatre Wing, Terminal 5, Beth Morrison Projects, National Sawdust, Boston Lyric Opera, City Theatre, and Diversionary Theatre. He is an alumni of The Public Theater’s Devised Theatre Working Group and the HERE Artist Residency Program and is has collaborated with the multimedia performance collectives Big Art Group and The Builders Association. Adam is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation among others and he was an invited exhibitor and ambassador to the 2018 Beijing International Design Biennial. He is a member of IATSE USA Local 829. Read full bio here.

"I'm very touched and honored to be chosen as the recipient of this year's USITT and LDI/Live Design Rising Star Award,” says Thompson. “My work in video and projection design seeks to fuse the narrative vocabularies of gaming, cinema, and live performance and to center dramaturgy in the design process. I am excited by and aim to create video designs that are rooted in liveness: designs that are an active, responsive, and participatory stage partner. This recognition from USITT and LDI/Live Design tells me that there is a robust enthusiasm for this kind of work in our field, and that there is an eagerness to support all of us who are striving to create new multidisciplinary and human-centric live experiences."

“In the few years since he graduated from the Video & Media Design MFA program (VMD) at CMU, Adam has built an extremely diverse and prolific practice, ranging from compelling design work Off-Broadway and across the country, with cutting edge directors like Taylor Mac and Anne Bogart, to creating detailed graphics and other visual elements for streaming TV and film,” says Lawrence Shea, on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. “He is a dedicated artist and vital contributor to the entertainment community, and he demonstrates the impressive potential of this relatively new career path of Video & Media Design.”

Justin Lucero, artistic director, El Paso Opera, where Thompson designed Frida in 2022, comments: “As an innovator, Adam is revolutionary. He has a way of approaching process that is refreshing and truly eye-opening. His questions and curiosity and dreaming are intrinsic. His ability (and desire) to thinking dramaturgically and directorially is stimulating. And his demeanor throughout is conducive to work, while maintaining a mindset of social awareness, equity, work-life balance, antiracist beliefs, and collaborative spirit.

Rising Star Award Winners 2005-2022
2022: Kristin Martino, scenic designer
2021: Elizabet Puksto, scenic/production designer
2020: Joe Klug, scenic designer
2019: Maranda DeBusk, lighting/projection designer
2018: Paige Hathaway, scenic designer
2017: Bryce Cutler, scenic & media designer
2016: Stephen Moss, lighting designer
2015: Chris Wood, lighting & sound designer
2014: Janie Bullard, sound designer
2013: Aaron Porter, lighting designer
2012: Jason Simms, scene designer
2011: Daniel Brodie, projection designer
2010: Ben Pilat, lighting designer
2009: Sean Savoie, lighting designer
2008: Elisheba Ittoop, sound designer
2007: John Horan, lighting designer
2006: Justin Townsend, lighting & scenic designer
2005: Kelly Hanson, scenic designer