Raphael creates visual work for live performance specializing in new play development. He is based in New York City and loves long walks, collaborative art making, and public transportation.
He has designed scenery at Soho Rep, Clubbed Thumb’s Winterworks, the New School, Dixon Place, ANTfest, NYU, HERE Arts Center, Amerinda Native Theater, and UC San Diego. He served as the associate designer for Is It Thursday Yet? (La Jolla Playhouse), Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce , and the international tour of 24 Decade History of Popular Music (Pomegranate Arts)
His puppet work includes Tumacho (Clubbed Thumb), The Amateurs (the Vineyard), Collective Rage... (MCC), Something Rotten (Broadway), and shows with the Public/NYSF and the Signature Theater. He previously worked for the Henson Company NY Shop, Basil Twist’s Tandem Otter, Lake Simons, and Mabou Mines. Additional large-scale outdoor work with organizations including Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, Great Small Works, Mijente, ALIGN, Fight For 15!, SEIU, About Face, brASS Burlesque, and the People’s Puppets of OWS.
Raphael previously worked as a props designer for new plays. Highlights include the world premieres of Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to Me (Broadway), Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music (St. Ann’s Warehouse), Will Arbery’s Plano (Clubbed Thumb), Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theater), and Jaclyn Backhaus’s Men On Boats (Playwrights Horizons/Clubbed Thumb) along with numerous shows at Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, the Foundry, and Rattlestick.
He won the 2020 Drama Desk Award for Puppet Design (Ethan Lipton’s Tumacho) and has been twice nominated for the American Theater Wing Henry Hewes Design Awards.
He is an Associated Artist with Clubbed Thumb and a founding member of Building Stories LLC.
Raphael has an MFA from University of California San Diego and a degree from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study in “Puppetry and Subversive Performance” for which he received the Leo Bronstein Award for interdisciplinary work in arts and society.