Ralph Funicello
Don Powell Chair in Scene Design
Design and Technology
School of Theatre, Television, and Film
College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts
SDSU
Bio
Ralph Funicello holds the position of Powell Chair in Set Design at San Diego State University. He has designed the scenery for over 300 productions of plays and operas throughout the world including the Broadway productions of Julius Caesar, Brooklyn Boy, Henry IV (Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony Award nominations), King Lear, QED, and Division Street, Off-Broadway productions including Saturn Returns, Ten Unknowns (Lortel Nomination), Pride’s Crossing, and Labor Day, New York City Opera’s La Rondine, San Diego Opera’s Don Quichotte, Murder in the Cathedral and LA Opera’s acclaimed productions of The Dwarf and The Broken Jug. He is an Associate Artist at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and has designed for the American Conservatory Theatre, the Mark Taper Forum, the South Coast Rep, the Seattle Rep, the Lincoln Center Theatre, the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Milwaukee Rep, the American Festival Theatre, the Arizona Theatre Company, the Berkeley Rep, the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Intiman Theatre, The Huntington Theatre, Kansas City Rep, A Contemporary Theatre, The Guthrie Theatre, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington D.C., The Theatre Royal Bath, Shakespeare Center LA, The Stratford Festival of Canada and The Royal Shakespeare Company.
He has received The Merritt Award for Excellence In Design and Collaboration and awards from the Bay Area Theatre Critics’ Circle, the L.A. Drama Critics’ Circle, Dramalogue Magazine, Backstage West, and the United Stated Institute of Theatre Technology. His work has been exhibited at the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts in New York City, the University of San Diego, San Diego State University, Tiffany & Co. San Diego, the Chevron Gallery in San Francisco, The Prague Quadrennial, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, and the Exhibition of Stage Design in Beijing.
He was the U. S. Delegate to the Scenography Commission of O.I.S.T.A.T. (International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects, and Technicians) from 1996-2001 and was a member of the Theatre Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1984-1985.