Disney Theatrical Group has announced the return of the Pipeline Project. A partnership with SheNYC Arts, the Harriet Tubman Effect and Theater Advocacy Collective, the Pipeline Project initiative aims to help mid-career women, femme and nonbinary designers make vital industry connections. On March 31, the Pipeline Project will host its second showcase and networking event, focused on projection and video designers, following last year’s program centered on scenic designers.
It will take place at the New Amsterdam Theatre. It is open to projection designers with two or more regional credits. Individual designers will be given a table; attendees (which includes any interested industry members) will be able to visit stations and speak with each designer to become familiar with their work. Attendees will sign up for an hour-long time slot to circulate the showcase.
The Pipeline Project is the brainchild of Anne Quart (executive vice president, producing and development, and executive producer of DTG), Danielle DeMatteo (founder and artistic director of SheNYC Arts), Jen Friedland (founder of the Theater Advocacy Collective) and Nicole Johnson (creative director and founder of the Harriet Tubman Effect). This project formed out of the need to address the on- and offstage gender gap that had been illuminated during Disney’s Women’s Day on Broadway events from 2018-2020.
“This time last year, Anne and I had a conversation where she said that she wanted to sort of continue the Women’s Day on Broadway programming, but tried to do it in a way that would have a real, tangible impact on the industry,” DeMatteo told Broadway News. “We ended up honing in on this issue of how it can be really hard for designers, especially when they’re new, to find their place in the industry without connections. So many times when producers are hiring designers, they’re just going to people they know or who their creative team knows. We wanted to break down that barrier a little bit and set something up where mid-career women designers could start to forge those connections to move ahead.”
While brainstorming, DeMatteo, who formerly served as Quart’s assistant at Disney, was simultaneously working with Friedland to set up the Theater Advocacy Collective. “Jen had this idea for a collective that would be an umbrella organization for all the nonprofits working in the Equity space on Broadway,” DeMatteo explained. “Jen pulled together a bunch of organizations, including SheNYC and the Harriet Tubman Effect. We decided that if we were going to collaborate with Disney on an event like this, we should bring that whole group of organizations in on it.”
“The Pipeline Project is an experiment to explore different ways to create meaningful connection between women designers of all disciplines and decision-makers in the industry with the explicit purpose of allowing these talented individuals access to work [opportunities] that they may not otherwise have,” Quart said via email. “Organizations like SheNYC Arts, the Harriet Tubman Effect and Theater Advocacy Collective are doing this work already and we are proud to partner with them.”
The first Pipeline event took place in September 2024 with a focus on scenic designers. It was telling to see a slew of designers with multiple-page résumés of assistant or associate design credits, DeMatteo noted. “They were all extremely qualified but had never been hired to be a lead set designer.”
“I have been an assistant and associate designer on Broadway for two decades, while designing my own work at the same time,” Mikiko Suzuki Adams explained via email. “The showcase event has helped me find a positive and confident way to present myself. I was simply honored to be asked to participate alongside my amazing female set design colleagues.”
Beyond the designers who were spotlighted, the scenic design event also proved beneficial to the attendees.
“It was eye-opening for me as a producer to get to meet amazing designers I hadn’t known of that are thriving in their field but waiting on their big break,” Mike Karns, a producer on the upcoming Broadway mounting of “The Last Five Years,” told Broadway News.
“As a marketer, it was exciting to chat with the folks about opportunities to build their own brand and visibility within the industry,” added Karnes, who is also CEO and founder of the Broadway social media agency Marathon Digital. “So many of us have achieved success in our careers as a result of someone lifting us up, and these artists have immense potential, if given the same opportunities.”
Turning the focus to projection and media design this year will bring a different level of importance, as the art form has emerged on Broadway in the last few decades. “Given that it is such a new design discipline, it means that there have been fewer opportunities for these designers to get work, fewer opportunities for them to network or have mentorship in the way that other designers could have,” DeMatteo said.
According to SheNYC Arts, over the last decade, 82.6 percent of the projection designers working in a Broadway season were male, while only 16.1 percent identified as female, and, smaller still, 1.3 percent were nonbinary.
“It is my genuine hope that the event will be well attended, and these talented designers will emerge with exciting new connections,” added Quart.
Interested designers can apply for the 2025 Pipeline Project event here. Industry professionals hoping to attend are invited to email jtf@theateradvocacycollective.org.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the venue of the event and source of the projection designer statistics. The Pipeline Project will be at the New Amsterdam Theatre. The statistics were provided by SheNYC Arts.
