Marsha Ginsberg
ENGLISH: A Classroom. A Curtain. A Handrail. A Sign.
Marsha Ginsberg’s ENGLISH brings together photographs of her scenic design for the Broadway production of Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play with images from her research travels in Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. Classrooms, corridors, curtains, handrails, and signage appear alongside photographs of the stage set, showing how observations of everyday architecture informed her design.
Set in an English-language classroom in Iran, Toossi’s play deals with language, identity, and belonging. Ginsberg’s stage set revolves, revealing different views of the same room as the story unfolds. The book also includes excerpts from the play, a director’s note by Knud Adams, and Ginsberg’s reflections on her design process.
Marsha Ginsberg is a visual artist and stage designer working across theatre, opera, photography, and installation. Her work has been presented at Deutsche Oper Berlin, Theater Basel, HKW Berlin, and BAM Next Wave. Ongoing collaborations include projects with Knud Adams, Christopher Alden, Ted Huffman, and Daniel Fish. She received a 2025 Tony Award nomination for Best Scenic Design of a Play for English and is a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. She is an Associate Arts Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi.
— @marshagins
