During HGO’s 2026-27 season, Eric Southern makes his company debut as the lighting designer for Susannah. Southern is an Obie Award-winning designer working in theater, opera, music, and dance. Recent projects with Opera Theater of St. Louis include A Streetcar Named Desire (with director Patricia Racette); Galileo, Galalei and Tosca (with director James Robinson); Don Pasquale (with director Christopher Alden), and Julius Caesar (with director Elkhanah Pulitzer). With Boston Lyric Opera, he has designed Macbeth, William Tell, and John Conklin’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. His designs have also been seen at Lincoln Center, Virginia Opera, Playwrights Horizons, Opera Omaha, The Public Theater, The Goodman Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Manhattan Theater Club, Baltimore Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, The Kennedy Center, Atlantic Theater Company, Center Theater Group, Carnegie Hall, Audible Theatre, and The Guthrie Theater, among others. Internationally, his projects have been presented in London, Paris, Avignon, Seoul, Japan, Athens, Australia, Hannover, and Zurich.  He received both his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees at New York University and teaches at Northwestern University.