Donald Holder

Who is Donald Holder?

Donald Holder is an American lighting designer in theatre, opera, and dance based in New York. He has been nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning the 1998 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lighting Design for The Lion King. He won a second Tony in 2008 for the revival of South Pacific. His lighting design for Ragtime has been nominated for a 2010 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design of a Musical. Additional Broadway credits include: Big Fish, Annie, Golden Boy, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Arcadia, The Motherf**cker With The Hat, Promises, Promises, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Radio Golf, The Little Dog Laughed, Movin' Out, The Times They Are a-Changin', A Streetcar Named Desire, Holiday,Cyrano de Bergerac, and Prelude to a Kiss.

Holder studied forestry at the University of Maine, where he graduated from in 1980. He also worked for the Portland Stage Company in Maine. He holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama and is a student of Jennifer Tipton. He was the head of lighting design from 2006-2010 in the School of Theater at the California Institute of the Arts. He is currently the theatrical lighting designer for the NBC-Universal Television Series: 'Smash.'