Tony-Winning Set Designer and Beloved Mentor Ming Cho Lee Dies at 90

Ming Cho Lee, who designed numerous Broadway sets, took home a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2013 and instructed many aspiring designers, has died at the age of 90. According to LiveDesign, he passed away on October 24, just three weeks after he celebrated his 90th birthday.

Born on October 3, 1930 in Shanghai, the designer moved to the United States in 1949. He went on to make his Broadway debut in 1956 as the technical assistant on Happy Hunting. He garnered his first Tony nomination in 1970 for Billy. His credits spanned Shakespeare revivals, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, The Glass Menagerie and more. Lee's design for K2, a play about two mountain climbers who find themselves trapped on a ledge of the second-highest mountain in the world, won a Tony Award in 1983.

His off-Broadway design credits were also expansive: he notably created the set for Hair at the Public Theater in 1967. Lee designed nationally and internationally for over 50 years for opera, dance, Broadway and regional theater. During his illustrious career, he received the National Medal of Arts for his work. He was co-chair of the Design department at Yale School of Drama, where he taught for 48 years. He is considered the "dean of the American scenic design community," having taught so many students about the craft. His work is immortalized in Arnold Aronson's illustrated work Ming Cho Lee: A Life in Design, which was published in 2014.

Watch Lee's speech for his 2013 Lifetime Achievement Tony Award below.