George Izenour

George Charles Izenour (pronounced I-zen-our), MPhys, AIEEE (July 24, 1912 – March 24, 2007) was an American designer and leading innovator in the field of theatrical design and technology, as well as an author and educator. He taught at Yale University from 1940 to 1977 (with time during World War II working on anti-submarine programs). In 1959 he established a consulting firm for theater design and acoustics.

He is best known for creating one of the first electronic theatre lighting dimming systems. Over the course of his career, he invented and developed multiple technologies that are now part of the core of modern theatrical productions, and held numerous patents for his inventions.

Biography

Early life and education George Izenour was born in 1912 in New Brighton, Pennsylvania; his family moved to Ambridge in 1917. In 1918 Izenour's father moved the family to Mansfield, Ohio. The boy had a condition known as keratoconus, a non-spherical deformation of the cornea of the eye, and he needed extra help from his parents in his early years of education. His mother taught him English and Latin, and his father history and mathematics. George began formal schooling at the age of six in Mansfield.

While at Mansfield Senior High School, Izenour became involved in the school theater program and appeared in all the plays. He also painted scenery for the productions and became increasingly interested in the technical aspects of theatre.

Izenour attended Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio. He obtained a master's degree in physics.

Izenour designed a theater that could be converted from one stage type to the other by a process, part manual and part electronic, that took about 15 minutes. This convertible design was celebrated in the architectural world and became known as an Izenour theatre. Today Izenour theatres have been built across the United States, as well as in Canada, Venezuela, and Israel. No Broadway theatres adopted such a program. “Broadway is not for me,” he said in a 1959 interview with The New York Times. “I am a radical to those real estate operators.”

Izenour used the positive renown he gained from this project to establish George C. Izenour Associates as a theatre design and acoustical consulting firm. Through his consultancy firm, Izenour advised such prestigious clients as the Metropolitan Opera Company and the Juilliard School of Music on technical matters. In addition, he helped to design more than 100 theatres across the country.

“George really was the father of modern theatre consulting and design,” remembers Steve Pollock. “Some of his initial project work, such as the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, relied on a number of individual spaces to satisfy a broad menu, whether it be a great hall, an amphitheatre, a studio theatre, and so on. Over time, George began to roll a lot of these functions into what was referred to as the multi-use theatre, and that's really George’s invention, wherein technology was used to vary acoustics, move ceilings, to do all of these things with moving architecture, changing the physicality of the space itself.”—Yale School of Drama Alumni Magazine, 2010–11

In 1977 Izenour retired from Yale from his positions both as professor emeritus of theatre design and technology and director emeritus of the electro-mechanical laboratory of the Yale University School of Drama. He continued his consulting business in a converted oyster shack next to his home at Stony Creek, Connecticut, where he overlooked the Thimble Islands.

His son, architect Steven Izenour, had designed the house. He won both national recognition for it by the American Institute of Architects and international acclaim in an exhibit at the Pompidou Center in Paris. The living room was lead lined, in order to be acoustically separate from the rest of the house. It was designed in section to emulate the plan acoustics of Carnegie Hall. During construction, Izenour fired a starter's pistol every day in the living room to record the reverberation and adjust the baffles. He enjoyed playing a concert recording of the 1812 Overture at volume for visitors. The Juilliard String Quartet said Izenour's living room was one of their favorite recording spaces. Izenour lived there until his wife's death in 2002.

Later years and death After that, Izenour moved to Cathedral Village in Philadelphia. He continued to work on theatre design projects until his death in 2007.

Technology George Izenour is credited with over 27 patents for various technologies and design improvements. His developments have significantly affected the art of stagecraft and theatre in general.

Some of his many contributions to theatre technology include: Patent #2,942,879 Scenery Handling Apparatus a patent for a remotely operated, motor-controlled fly system. This patent is the precursor to all modern computer-controlled scenery systems. Patent #2,463,463 Lighting Control Circuits, perhaps Izenour's best-known invention, is a patent for a compact, remote-operation system for theatrical and television lighting dimming systems. This patent is the basis for all modern lighting control consoles. Izenour also developed such varied technologies as articulated acoustical sub-structures, and assorted analogue and digital control systems. He created the inverse polarized rectifier circuit for dimming and switching stage lighting, the first of its kind. The invention, using thyratrons, significantly reduced the size of dimming systems used in theatres.

Pennsylvania State University houses a collection of Izenour's original prototypes for lighting control and automated fixtures. It also holds a collection of his linen and vellum drawings.