#92 Olivia Sebesky

This week we are sitting down with Projection Designer and bespectacled wonder-woman Olivia Sebesky! She is currently a Knight of Illumination nominee for her work on the lastest Aerosmith concert and she’s here to tell us the journey of that design including a 35-minute preshow retrospective of the band and the massive undertaking of clearing all the rights for every frame of footage. She’s also sharing stories about her other recent concert designs including Hootie and the Blowfish and James Taylor. Cory and Olivia discuss her theatrical work on shows like ‘Jerry Springer’ and ‘Me…Jane’ and discuss a whole host of topics facing projection designers including content budgets, software costs, to program or not, how she divides up the work among her team, and how to find the balance of how much video to incorporate into a show. She tells us how (friend of the show!) Justin Townsend may be responsible for her career and why by the time you listen to this, she will have spent some quality time with a Beluga whale!

Olivia Sebesky is a New York City based Projection Designer, Art Director, and Motion Graphics Designer.
Olivia creates art for theater, dance, TV, concerts and special events. She has designed projections for James Taylor, Aerosmith, Hootie & The Blowfish, P!NK, Nike, Jordan, Soho House, Alice and Olivia, Bloomberg, The New Group, Bebe & Cece Winans, Spiegelworld, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, TED, The Nasser bin Hamad Awards, TruTV, Tommy Hilfiger, Goodspeed Opera House, Martha Graham Dance Company, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Streb, STREB Extreme Action Dance Company, Fordham University, Paper Mill Playhouse, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Olivia is a classically trained painter and illustrator. She received the 2013 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Design (Chad Deity), was nominated for the 2016 Connecticut Critics Circle Award for Projection Design (My Paris), was nominated for a 2018 Helen Hayes Award for Projection and Set Design (Me…Jane) and was chosen as one of Live Design’s 30 Under 30 in 2018.

Olivia is a Lecturer in Creative Technologies at The New School and a member of United Scenic Artists 829.

oliviasebesky.com