Since 2000, New York based scenic and costume designer Anka Lupes has been pushing boundaries in contemporary opera and theatre. Her cross-disciplinary innovative style, successfully combined with her training in architecture and informed by extensive international travel, creates on stage environments and worlds that resonate with the social, cultural and political environment we live in. This style has earned her numerous national awards including a career development award from the National Endowment for the Arts/ Theatre Communication Group 2007-2009, an Opera America Director/Designer award in 2009, and the Dean’s Fellowship Award 2000-2003 from New York University.
Recent design credits include set and costumes for Rossini’s Mose in Egytto, and sets for Cavalli’s Giasone at the Chicago Opera Theatre; costumes for Lee Hall’s adaptation of Barber of Seville at the Bristol Old Vic, U.K; set and costumes for the multi-media opera Dear Land/Zolle for the International Contemporary Ensemble, New York.
She frequently collaborates with noted director Diane Paulus, and has designed scenery or costumes for her productions of Haydn’s Il mondo della luna for Gotham Chamber Opera at the Hayden Planetarium in New York; Kiss me Kate at the Glimmerglass Opera; the high-fashion world satire Fashion 47, created by Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner, at the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis; the theatre premiere of Another Country by James Baldwin, at Riverside Theatre, NYC; A Dream Play, at Minor Latham Playhouse, New York.
Other past design projects include set design for the Jacobean drama The Witch of Edmonton for the Red Bull Theatre, NYC; set design for Henry V at The Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYC; set and costume design for Something Cloudy, Something clear at the Tennessee Williams Festival; costume design for Pavol Liska’s adaptation of Three Sisters at Classic Stage Company, NYC; set and costume design for Ruth Margraff’s folk opera Café Antarsia at HERE Theatre; set design for Henry IV for the Virginia Shakespeare Festival. With director Andrew Eggert, she collaborated on Mourning becomes Electra by Marvin David Levy for Opera America (winner of Director-Designer Showcase 2009).
As a guest artist, she had been invited to design productions for Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, Fordham University, Barnard College, Steinhardt/Opera Studies, Chicago Conservatory of Music, and International Theatre Program/University of Rochester.
As a production designer and art director, she worked on short films and shows aired on ShowTime, TLC, Nick@Nite, NBC, FuseTV.
Anka studied at the University of Architecture in Bucharest, continued her undergraduate studies at State University of New York/F.I.T., and holds an MFA in stage and costume design from New York University/ Tisch School of the Arts. Member of United Scenic Artists USA 829.