Drama Desk Panel Focusing on Talent Behind the Scenes Jan.31

The Drama Desk will shine the spotlight on some of New York theater's leading behind-the-scenes creative talents at the organization's first special Panel of the new year on Thursday, January 31, 2008, 5:30 to 7:30 PM at BMI, 320 West 57th Street, 3rd Floor.

The Panel, entitled The Talent Behind The Scenes, will feature Lighting Designer Peggy Eisenhauer, Set Designers David Korins and James Morgan and Costume Designer Mimi O'Donnell. The Panel discussion will be moderated by James Houghton, Artistic Director of the Drama Desk-winning Signature Theatre Company. The event is produced by Drama Desk members Elyse Sommer and Ellis Nassour.

Peggy Eisenhauer, who created the lighting for the 2007 revival of The Ritz, won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award in 2004 for her lighting design for Assassins and in 2001 she earned a Tony nomination for her lighting on Jane Eyre. David Korins is co-founder and producer of Edge Theater Company, as well as a freelance scenic and production designer. He has received three Drama Desk Award nominations for his work as a set designer – Essential Self Defense and Jack Goes Boating, both in 2007, and for Orange Flower Water in 2005

Scenic designer/producer James Morgan is Artistic Director of York Theatre Company which was awarded a Drama Desk Special Award in 2007 for its "vital contributions to theater by developing and presenting new musicals." Mimi O'Donnell has designed for the LABrynth Theatre production of In Arabia We'd All Be Kings, staged by Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Patrick Shanley's Where's My Money? at the Manhattan Theatre Club, while working as a costume designer at NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live.