John Wulp

John Wulp (May 31, 1928 – November 27, 2018) was an American scenic designer, producer, director, and artist.^[1][2][3]

Wulp's first play, The Saintliness of Margery Kempe, won a Rockefeller Grant and was produced at the Poets' Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 19, 1957.^[4] Wulp also won an Obie Award for his direction of the 1961 stage play Red Eye of Love by playwright Arnold Weinstein. A musical adaptation of the play, with lyrics and libretto by Wulp and Weinstein, and music by Sam Davis, first premiered on Wulp's hometown island of North Haven, Maine^[5] before opening at the O'Neill Center in 2007.^[6] On September 4, 2014 Red Eye of Love the Musical opened Off-Broadway at the Amas Musical Theater in New York City.^[7]

Wulp won a Tony Award for Best Revival for his production of Dracula in 1978, which starred Frank Langella, with set designs by Edward Gorey, and opened at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 20, 1977. He received a Tony Award nomination and also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for the 1979 production of The Crucifer of Blood. Wulp later went on to win an Outer Circle Critics Award and a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award when the play was performed at the Royal Haymarket Theatre in London and at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles. His other Broadway credits include Passione, Bosoms and Neglect, and Gorey Stories.^[8]

Born and raised in New Rochelle, New York,^[9] Wulp studied scenic design at the Yale School of Drama.^[3] In the 1970s, he ran the Nantucket Stage Company on Nantucket.^[10]

In 1992, Wulp left New York and moved to the island of Vinalhaven, Maine. While there he taught at a community school on the adjacent island of North Haven; for which he later became a theater director. In 1999 he created the musical Islands with singer-songwriter Cidny Bullens. It later went on to play at the New Victory Theater in New York City in 2001.^[3]

Wulp retired from teaching in 2005.^[11] He died at the age of 90 in Rockport, Maine.^[12]

• Red Eye of Love (1961) - The Living Theatre (director)
• Dracula (1977) - Martin Beck Theatre (producer)
• The Crucifer of Blood (1978) - Helen Hayes Theatre (producer/scenic design)
• Gorey Stories (1978) - Booth Theatre (producer)
• Bosoms and Neglect (1979) - Longacre Theatre (producer/scenic design)
• Passione (1980) - Morosco Theatre (producer)
• Red Eye of Love (Musical) (2014) - Amas Musical Theatre (producer / lyricist)

• Wulp, John (2003). John Wulp. Commonplace Pub Llc. ISBN 0965164551.
• Gibson, John (2005). Enjoying Maine's Islands. Down East Books. ISBN 0892726776.
• Atkinson, Patrick (1996). Theatrical Design in the Twentieth Century: An Index to Photographic Reproductions of Scenic Designs. Greenwood. ISBN 0313297010.
• Dello Stritto, Frank (2000). Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain. Cult Movies Pr. ISBN 0970426909.
• Heidenry, John (1995). Theirs Was The Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt Wallace & the Story of the Reader's Digest. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. ISBN 0393312275.

• John Wulp at the Internet Broadway Database
• John Wulp designs and photographs, 1946-2005, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts