Dorn, Rudi, 1926-2011 : Rudi Dorn was born in Linz, Austria, in 1926; his father was a manager in a pharmaceutical company and his mother was a homemaker. Dorn graduated from engineering school in 1944 and was drafted into the German army soon after, ultimately participating in the Battle of Budge. In March 1945, he was captured by the Americans and handed over to the French as a prisoner. He was eventually repatriated to Austria in November in 1946 where he immediately took on studies in architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His Austrian fiancée, Margaret, joined him shortly after and they were married in 1952.
Living in Toronto, Dorn had much difficulty finding employment as an architect. He took on work as a designer for a display advertising company in Scarborough but soon found himself creatively under stimulated. In 1952, he sought out work as a stage designer and was hired to create sets for Dora Mavor Moore and her son Mavor Moore's "Spring Thaw" revue in Toronto. Taking Mavor Moore's advice, he did an apprenticeship of designing and painting theatre scenery on a weekly basis, doing ten shows in ten weeks in Scarborough under director Bob Christie. Following this training, Dorn obtained occasional work in Toronto theatres such as the Crest and the Avenue, doing sketches for roughly fifty dollars a show.
In 1952, Dorn also presented a portfolio of his set designs to the CBC, whose Toronto and Montreal studios were on the verge of achieving the first television broadcast in Canada. Mavor Moore, as CBC's Chief of television in Toronto, hired him on as a set designer. Dorn had to continue learning; no training was available for production designers in these early days of television. He read everything he could find on televisions set design and simply figured things out along the way with the help of his colleagues, including Nicolai Soloviov. At first, Dorn was mainly assigned to variety shows while Soloviov worked on Drama sets. Dorn's first project was "The Big Revue", which aired on the second day of broadcasting, September 9th, 1952. He also created sets for shows such as "The Denny Vaughan Show" starting in 1954 and "Cross Canada Hit Parade" starting in 1955.
Dorn gradually moved over to Drama design and was permanently assigned to it in 1953, although he still occasionally did variety and other types of productions. In this new responsibility, he developed the distinct style of set design that would become his trademark: stark and abstract with rudimentary set pieces and angles intended for optimum effect when paired with the play of the actors. He became involved in more and more aspects of production, meeting with directors to discuss the movement and placement of the actors, scene breakdowns, blocking, script changes, cuts and casting. In high demand with many directors, he developed an especially close working relationship with Paul Almond, with whom he shared the belief that ¨realistic sets" were unnecessary, as "the only real thing was the emotion expressed on the face of a really good actor." For Dorn, the work was constant and the demand was high; in a 1978 interview for CBC, he recalled designing sets for twenty-two one-hour length productions in 1958 alone.
By the late 1950's, however, the arrival of live-to-tape shows gave Dorn more breathing room; with taping that could be stopped, the need to create complex sets that could accommodate various camera angles was lessened or even eliminated. Needing new challenges, Dorn accepted numerous projects outside the CBC, designed for productions such as the Canadian Opera Company's rendition of "Don Giovanni" in Toronto in 1963, "Die Fledermaus" at the Royal Alexandra Theatre and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's "The Golden Age" choreographed by Agnes deMille in 1967.
In the early 1960's he also began to try his hand at writing and encountered considerable success. Under the direction of Paul Almond, he saw three of his scripts brought to the small screen: "Broken Sky", which was about Dorn's own experience of being captured by the Americans during WWII ("Playdate" series, November 1962); "Sniper", featured on "Program X" in the early 1970's; and "The Neutron and the Olive", featured on "Quest" on November 3rd, 1962. Dorn eventually took on one of his scripts himself, designing and directing "Variations" on the March 22nd, 1967 broadcast of "Festival". The show had some critical success and was lauded by CBC as "a daring little excursion into new tv expression"; it became the first CBC drama that featured barely any dialogue, true to Dorn's trademark stylistic austerity. Dorn was offered a contract to direct and produce further projects in the Drama department shortly after and for the next decade, he was in create charge of various productions, often accomplishing his work under budget. He went on to direct such works as "The Painted Door" (Jan. 1968). "The Write-Off" (Nov. 1968), "Power Trip" (Nov. 1969), "Dulicima" (1969), "Night" (1970), "Noises of Paradise" (1970) and "The Executioners" (March 1974).
During those years, Dorn developed an important friendship with the Head of Drama at CBC, Fletcher Markle (1968-1973), but his new responsibilities did not survive Markle's successor. New changes brought about by John Hirsh (1973-1977) forced Dorn back to the Design department in 1975, where he took over as Design Manager after John Wilson's death in 1976. Redefined as Artistic Director in 1977, Dorn set about establishing the CBC Institute of Scenography with his colleague, Val Strazoves, and began providing new staff with extensive theoretical and practical instruction and skills that met with the high quality standards and specific production requirements expected by the CBC. Dorn and Strazoves received a joint CBC President's Award for their contribution to this endeavor in 1978. With Strazoves at the helm of the IOS as Director and Chief Instructor, Dorn was involved with training future CBC production designers from all over Canada; at the same time, he taught "Art and communication" at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto.
In 1988, Dorn was invited to contribute as a production designer for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Calgary Olympics. He was also involved in designing the opening ceremonies for the SkyDome in Toronto in 1989.
Rudi Dorn passed away in Toronto in 2011.
