A TRIBUTE TO NEEN ROCK Production Stage Manager 1990 to 2020 Neen Rock, longtime production stage manager and designer at Northern Sky Theater, died unexpectedly on Sunday, January 3, 2021. The cause was a cerebral aneurysm. Neen worked at Northern Sky for over thirty years, and her contributions to the company as a designer, stage manager, mentor, and beloved friend were numerous and farreaching. Neen began her work with Northern Sky in the late 1980s. She first worked with Northern Sky as a lighting consultant, assisting the company with its first use of theatrical lighting when the company was known as Heritage Ensemble. The variety of Neen’s playbill credits throughout the 1990s, as the company became American Folklore Theatre, makes clear the breadth of her talent and expertise: Neen is variously credited as technical advisor, production coordinator, set decorator, and designer of sets, costumes, and props. “Neen was an inventive, resourceful, problem-solving designer with extensive knowledge in all areas of theater,” said artistic director Jeff Herbst. “I worked with Neen for thirty years and she never ceased to amaze me with how she could make magic out of seemingly nothing.” Neen contributed design elements to every show the company produced during its first decade, placing her among the handful of artists that forged Northern Sky’s identity from its outset. Her designs of sets, costumes, and props were central to such iconic shows as Belgians in Heaven, Bone Dance, Lumberjacks in Love, Goodnight Irene, Fishing for the Moon, and Guys on Ice. Towering bunkbeds and old screen doors, fishing poles and angel wings, skeleton suits and welding masks: Neen imagined, sewed, and
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