YU-HSUAN CHEN
SET/PRODUCTION DESIGN
Praise For Our Dear Dead Drug Lord
"Create a treehouse, an inner sanctum where four teenagers will speak their truths and do their worst in that terrifying way that only teenagers can. Everything is secret and no one is safe here. Add to this puzzle that the physical theater itself is tricky - steep and shallow - a challenging space to make dynamic. The result is somehow vaulting but also intimate, an edgy clubhouse in which something dangerous is clearly going to happen. For her evocative, tactile, and very clever Set Design for OUR DEAR DEAD DRUG LORD, the judges have awarded an Obie to YU-HSUAN CHEN. "
- 2020 Obie Award Citation
" The show has been steeped in a home-brewed sensuality that is both festive and creepy by a design team that includes Yu-Hsuan Chen (set), Andy Jean (costumes), Lucrecia Briceno (lighting) and Fan Zhang (sound). "
- Ben Brantley, The New York Times (NYT Critic's Pick) / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s set (with Karin White’s props) is so detailed that it offers a good deal to look at including a huge poster of Escobar and Christmas lights left over from years ago. "
- Victor Gluck, Theater Scene / Full Review
Praise For Pumpgirl
" In this revival, the director has been more generous to the characters and, thanks to Yu-Hsuan Chen’s evocative set, grants Pumpgirl and Sinead their own little corners of warmth."
- Jose Solís, The New York Times (NYT Critic's Pick) / Full Review
" Scenic designer Yu-Hsuan Chen makes complete use of these close quarters, inventively squeezing in three separate sets on an L-shaped stage that extends out into the audience. With clever visual economy, she gives us Sinead’s bedroom/kitchen, Hammy’s race car, and Pumpgirl’s petrol station, whose verisimilitude is aided by small touches like a rack of Tayto Cheese and Onion Crisps. "
- Joseph Pisano, Theater Scene / Full Review
"...in the tiny downstairs theatre at the Irish Rep, has a tripartite set design by Yu-Hsuan Chen that provides the action with a sensible ground plan, aided by Michael O'Connor's attention-shifting lighting."
- David Barbour, Lighting & Sound America / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen's set surreally conjures up a 1970s deluxe Toyota Celica, shabby bed-room, and seedy petrol station and snugly juxtaposes them on the intimate W. Scott McLucas Studio space. "
- Deirdre Donovan, CurtainUp / Full Review
" Each of the characters is equally important, which is surely the underlining point of Yu-Hsuan Chen’s gritty triptych set. (It features a row of pump handles on the wall behind the Pumpgirl and elsewhere a skimpy kitchen to which Sinead keeps repairing and a slanted bed to which she hustles to rest.)"
- David Finkle, New York Stage Review / Full Review
"... set designer Yu-Hsuan Chen provides a detailed garage for the pumpgirl's monologues."
- Michael Dale, Broadway World / Full Review
Praise For Paradise Blue
" Yu-Hsuan Chen has created the best set of the year with her thrust bar/club set: a sliding wall opens up, allowing the second set, of Silver’s apartment, to come in over the bar. It’s brilliantly done and the audience cheered during the first scene change of the night."
- Tim Leininger, Journal Inquirer / Full Review
" ...Yu-Hsuan Chen’s set design stands out as one of the production’s strongest elements."
- E. Kyle Minor, New Haven Register / Full Review
" Set designer Yu-Hsuan Chen has delivered a tour de force that is this group’s sanctuary, with a two-story set that gives us a whole picture of what the Paradise might have been in its heyday."
- Lucy Gellman, Arts Council / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s set, a club in its off-hours, looks suitable and creates a public yet intimate space for what amount to haphazard encounters."
- Donald Brown, New Haven Review / Full Review
Praise For
What To Send Up When It Goes Down
" We are soon reminded that the list embodied by this display keeps growing. We enter the theater, an open space (designed by Yu-Hsuan Chen and lighted by Cha See) and are instructed to assemble in a circle."
- Ben Brantley, The New York Times (NYT Critic's Pick) / Full Review
" ...the actors move restlessly about Yu Hsuan Chen’s empty, grey set, dominated by a white chalk circle—a tip of the hat to Brecht—that is ominously retraced and strewn with confetti. "
- Elysa Gardner, New York Stage Review / Full Review
*What To Send Up When It Goes Down - Promo Video
Praise For Dancing At Lughnasa
"....which is brilliantly realized by Set Designer Yu-Hsuan Chen. I am legitimately in such awe of her set that I struggle to find the words to praise it. Chen has so beautifully captured the line between reality and memory with a perfectly-appointed cottage kitchen... I truly felt like I was looking in on someone else’s memory and it made me uncomfortable in the best possible way. Chen’s set is nothing short of perfection."
- Andrea Bush, DC Theatre Scene / Full Review
" Set Designer Yu-Hsuan Chen invites the audience into Michael’s memory of that end of summer season in 1936 with his stunningly gorgeous set."
- Amanda N. Gunther, Theatre Bloom / Full Review
"The choice underlines the ghost-like nature of memories, whose dreamlike nature is complemented by lush golden lighting by Jay Herzog and a gorgeous set by Yu-Hsuan Chen."
- Cassandra Miller, Baltimore Fishbowl / Full Review
" ....from the moment it enters the house to observe Yu-Hsuan Chen’s enchanting set for Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa."
- Bill Kamberger, Backstage Baltimore / Full Review
"...drink in Yu-Hsuan Chen’s painterly set–with sinuously twisted old trees and a stone country cottage rendered in ochres, browns and golds that suggests the Arts and Crafts style. "
- Jayne Blanchard, DC Theatre Scene / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s literal set proves sufficiently evocative."
- Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun / Full Review
" Set designer Yu-Hsuan Chen deserves much credit for creating a meager, but detailed cottage and kitchen."
- JV Torres, MD Theatre Guide / Full Review
" Along with the gorgeous rustic set by Yu-Hsuan Chen..."
- Tina Collins, Broadway World Baltimore / Full Review
Praise For The Homecoming Queen
Praise For Inanimate
"Designer Yu-Hsuan Chen transforms the little downstairs Atlantic 2 space into a comfortable compound."
- Helen Shaw, Time Out New York / Full Review
"Yu-Hsuan Chen's two-level wraparound set (with the audience on two sides) effectively immerses us in the life of the compound."
- David Barbour, Light & Sound America / Full Review
"We feel that viscerally through Yu-Hsuan Chen's set, which invites us into the yard of the family compound."
- Zachary Stewart, Theater Mania / Full Review
" The economical set and lighting by Yu-Hsuan Chen and Oona Curley, respectively, are sufficiently evocative alongside colorful and later-poignant costumes by Ntokozo Fuzunina Kunene..."
- Robert Russo, Stage Left / Full Review
" ...Yu-Hsuan Chen's simple set. By extending the action to to the top of each seating the audience is given a sense of being immersed in the life of this village and these characters."
- Elyse Sommer, A Curtain Up Review / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s mutable street-scene set evokes small-town bleakness with comic-book brightness."
- Ben Brantley, The New York Times (NYT Critic's Pick) / Full Review
" ...the set designer Yu-Hsuan Chen artfully scatters around a number of objects and furniture pieces that stand in for the play's varied locations. (In an especially clever touch, one of those Salvation Army donation boxes opens up to reveal Kevin's collection of ephemera.) "
- David Barbour, L & S America / Full Review
"The spare, functional, comic-book influenced set designed by Yu-Hsuan Chen (any set that manages to include a functioning lava lamp tucked into a bookcase is a winner in my book), is lit to great effect by Becky Heisler McCarthy."
- Martha Wade Steketee, Theater Pizzazz / Full Review
*Inanimate is listed as one of the 10 Things to Do Now in NYC in The New York Times
Praise For M Butterfly
" Set Design by Yu-Hsuan Chen is cleverly minimal with a beautiful cut out screen across the back of the stage with simple set pieces coming in and out to represent different locations. It’s clean, precise, and fits with the story quite appropriately. Chen is careful not to muddle the stage with too much and it keeps the attention on the story being told which is a wise choice... "
- Jason Crawford Samios-Uy, Backstage Baltimore / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s sets for this presentational script were simple and elegant, leaving not a sharp edge or a straight-line to behold. "
- Robert Michael Oliver, DC Metro Theater Arts / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen, who designed last year’s “Great Expectations,” returns with another dazzling set design. Some may see it immediately or it may come as a slow realization. The entire set – from the stage floor itself to the cut out opening in the set wall that is a scrim over cell-like bars – is a literal symbol of the play itself."
- Lynne Menefee, MD Theatre Guide / Full Review
" I loved the use of the "Red" flag being waved by a Chinese Communist played by Messiora...Credit must be given to the superb set by Yu-Hsuan Chen..."
- Charles Shubow, Broadway World Baltimore / Full Review
Praise For Great Expectations
" Literally the show’s biggest star is the amazing, must-see set design by Yu-Hsuan Chen. The audience members who arrived early to the sold out show either sat in their chairs, stunned by the vista, or went up front for a closer look. "
- Wendi Winters, DC Metro Theater Arts / Full Review
"...Everyman Theatre, they never disappoint when it comes to Set Design and Yu-Hsuan Chen pulled out all the stops for this production. Chen’s use of the space is spectacular, giving the actors ample space to move around to keep the action interesting and the attention to detail is second to none. The set alone sets the mood for this piece and the artistry of this faded, derelict setting is superb."
- Jason Crawford Samios-Uy, Backstage Baltimore / Full Review
" Yu-Hsuan Chen’s set is astonishing. There are multiple venues for the story but the principal domain Chen has established is Miss Havisham’s mansion, and it is everything that Dickens said it was."
- Tim Treanor, DC Theater Scene / Full Review
" Scenic Designer Yu-Hsuan Chen's set is a magnificent assemblage of texture, depth, and various hues of non-color, which acts as brilliant canvas for Stephen Quandt's lighting design."
- Cybele Pomeroy, BWW Review / Full Review
" The other character in this production is the set designed by Yu-Hsuan Chen.... The concept was to create a visual collage of the places in Pip’s memories. Complemented by the wonderful work of lighting designer Stephen Quandt and sound designer Fabian Obispo, the organic nature of the set design adapted to each scene and also allowed the illusion of outdoors."
- Lynne Menefeeon, MD Theater Guide / Full Review
"Thompson brings great nuance, as well as flow, to Pip's journey through country and town, aided at every turn by Yu-Hsuan Chen's clever, capacious set design and David Burdick's expert costumes..."
- Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun / Full Review