On Making
I came to theater from Iran, where I began working alongside the country's most prominent young artists before making my way to New York. That journey, from a dark theater in downtown Tehran to stages across America, is not just biography. It is how I see. I carry things from that place and that distance that don't always have names in this industry, but they are present in every room I enter.
My practice is rooted in the makers. What draws me to a room is the people in it; what they are reaching toward before they have the language for it, what is hard for them, what they need to find. I came to lighting through directing, and that dual perspective means I am always attending to dramaturgy, to intention, to the human architecture underneath the visual one. I am drawn to untold stories, unknown worlds, work that is arriving for the first time, the moment before a voice has been recognized, when everything is still becoming itself. Theater, for me, is a craft not a content cycle, and that distinction is everything.
What keeps me going, either in a rehearsal room or when walking the streets with a camera, is the same thing. The story of a human, told to another group of humans. As Bruce Davidson said -and I have never found a better way to put it- I'm just a humanist.
Bio
Reza Behjat is an Obie Award-winning lighting designer based in New York City.
His work has been seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at leading regional theaters across the country, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Atlantic Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Rep, The Old Globe, The Huntington, Seattle Rep, and many more.
Reza won an Obie Award in the design category for his work on two productions of ENGLISH and WISH YOU WERE HERE in 2023. In addition, alongside the cast and the creative team of ENGLISH, he received a Special Citation from the Obie Award. Additionally, he is the recipient of the prestigious Knight of Illumination award for NINA SIMONE: FOUR WOMEN in 2019. He was also nominated for the Drama Desk, Henry Hewes Design Awards, and Jeff Awards, among others.