Reviews & Awards


Film & TV

Were’ the Millers

Dust Devils

Sleepy Hollow

Banshee

Homeland

Theatre

 August Osage County
(Best Design Award)

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity and Bengal Tiger at the Bagdad Zoo.
(Best Design Award)

Miracle on 34th Street

The Whipping Man

The Exit Interview

 

Architecture

United Church of Chapel Hill
(NC AIA Honor Award)

A Room for Saying Goodbye
(AIA Triangle Award)

ACSA Affordable Housing
(Honor Award)


But in Osage, Simmons père is directing actors who are as much as 25 feet in the air, so he has called upon a set designer with an architectural degree, Dee Blackburn. In its full-bodied, oddball angularity, Blackburn’s is the best Osage set I’ve seen, including the Tony Award winner at the Imperial Theatre, where the Broadway production premiered.
— Perry Tannenbaum, Creative Loafing (August Osage County)
Dee Blackburn’s set design is likewise first class—with the convincing richness of marble and hardwood floors, fine furniture, and tall glass windows and doors that show a balcony and beach backdrop.
— Molly Smith Metzer, ARTS a la Mode (Elemeno Pea)
Thanks to Dee Blackburn’s boldly conceived set design, there are wonders to behold inside the theater as well. A truckload of recycled newspapers, imported from Shelby, has been turned into a mighty two-story evocation of the cave Floyd discovered, the Collinses’ Kentucky hometown, and the hillside over-looking the shaft where Floyd lies trapped. Up high on the hill, you can espy musical director John Coffey over the ridge at the keyboard, leading a capable sextet in CAST’s first-ever musical.
— Perry Tannenbaum, Creative Loafing (Floyd Collins)