ABOUT CLARKE AND BARBARA DUNHAM

THE CREATORS OF DUNHAM STUDIOS

           DUNHAM STUDIOS is a most interesting partnership reflecting the diverse talents of the partners, Clarke and Barbara Dunham. The Dunhams, long active in art and theater, have been involved with some form of design or display since their marriage as teenagers in Philadelphia over forty-four years ago. But in 1987, with the creation of Citibank Station as an instant New York "Holiday Tradition", model railroading, which had been Clarke's occasional hobby, took over their lives. In the last ten years their studio under Clarke's design influence has produced beautiful, elaborate layouts for Valley Junction Train Museum (Des Moines, Iowa), Western Heritage Museum (Omaha, Nebraska), America's Railroads on Parade (Williamsburg, Va.), the Railroaders' Memorial Museum in Altoona, Pa., the Cincinnati Museum Center and a select group of private and corporate clients from Maine to California. These worlds in miniature have been covered in publications ranging from Model Railroader, Classic Toy Trains and O-gauge Railroading through Smithsonian Magazine to Cigar Aficionado and have been seen on CNN's "Entertainment This Week", ABC's "VIEWS", the CBS Evening News, NBC's "EXTRA", FOX, and PBS's "TRACKS AHEAD". The Dunhams have produced four remarkable children all of whom do grown-up things (a White House Correspondent, a Washington Editor, a Philadelphia lawyer and a Virginia teacher of drama) while their parents continue to play with trains! Clarke's increasing 1998/1999 reemergence in the world of theatre and music predict a more balanced participation between trains and theatre for the Dunhams in the near future.

CLARKE DUNHAM has designed the scenery, lighting and/or projections for over 300 Broadway, off-Broadway, Regional Theatre and Opera productions during an award-winning career that now spans more than four decades. Since making his professional debut at the Valley Forge Music Fair while still a student at Philadelphia's Tyler School of Fine Arts.  Mr. Dunham's designs have been seen in major theaters throughout the United States, Canada and Europe including: Broadway, off-Broadway, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Goodman Theatre and the Lyric Opera in Chicago, the Miami Opera, Houston Grand Opera, O'Keefe Center in Toronto, the Theatre Carre in Amsterdam, the Royalty in London, the Theatre de Paris and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires.

Clarke Dunham has been repeatedly recognized by the industry for his perceptive, sensuous contributions to the theatre. He is the recipient of the Maharam Award (best scenery and lighting for a Broadway musical) for The Me Nobody Knows, the Jefferson Award (given by the Chicago critics for best scenery and lighting of the season) for Twentieth Century, and  Drama Desk nominations for the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of Hagar's Children and the 1997 Broadway production of Candide. His many collaborations with Harold Prince have netted him a Tony nomination in 1984 for End of The World, and Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle nominations in 1985 for the musical, Grind.

In over forty  years of innovative and unconventional design work, he has significantly influenced the New York theatre, having to his credit such diverse shows as the smash hit political satire, Mac Bird, the much acclaimed 1974 revivals of Waltz of the Toreadors and The Iceman Cometh, the exuberant Bubbling Brown Sugar, The End of The World, Three Guys Naked From The Waist Down and Grind.

Equally at home in the world of opera, Clarke Dunham has designed the scenery, lighting and/or projections for dozens of productions. Outstanding among them are the New York City Opera's Candide and the Chicago Lyric Opera's Madama Butterfly, both seen on PBS, both directed by Mr. Prince, as well as two strikingly different productions of Cavaleira Rusticana and I Pagliacci for the Miami Opera and the New York City Opera. In 1993 he contributed the scenery and projections for the Boston Lyric Opera's production of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights. Mr. Dunham is also active as a director /designer in music theatre having to his credit the American Premiere of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot at the Waterloo Festival and Amahl And The Night Visitors at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In fact, Mr. Dunham has been involved in nearly every area of entertainment. He has produced. He has designed for network television, commercials, industrial shows, World's Fairs, and Theme Parks. Also an expert in theater design and renovation, he designed the Perry Street Theater in New York City and the theater at the B.O.C.E.S. complex in Syosset, L.I. The incredible success of his Citibank Station Christmas train display and its 1996 successor, the Station at Citicorp (now Citigroup) Center created for the Citicorp (now Citigroup) Center atrium in New York City have propelled him into what have become dual careers---both as theatrical designer and designer/fabricator of custom model train layouts. His most recent Broadway credit is the Hal Prince Production of Candide which opened on Broadway in April of 1997. Since then, he has re-created the 1939 Worlds' Fair for the E.O.S. Orchestra at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 1998, and created a multi-media production of Haydn's opera "Philemon & Baucis" for New York's Orchestra of St. Lukes in 1999 and again in 2002.

SEE CLARKE'S THEATRICAL DESIGNS  CLICKING HERE.

BARBARA DUNHAM, Partner in Dunham Studios. When she is not managing the business affairs of Dunham Studios, running trains, building models, planting "trees", or creating "story scenes" on Dunham Studios renowned train layouts, you can find her tucked away in her private office creating stories for children and writing poetry.  Barbara Tumarkin Dunham , a graphic artist, lyricist and playwright is also prize-winning printmaker. Her graphic work is represented in the High Point Museum, the University of Pennsylvania , the Free Library of Philadelphia, Temple University and private collections in this country and abroad.