DVH Design is the registered Sole Proprietorship of Derek Van Heel.
Derek has over twenty years of experience in live production, having entered the entertainment industry professionally as a teenager, running a studio camera for local newscasts in his Montana hometown. He spent most of his twenties working in theaters across the United States with the help of four national tours, and in Seattle, where he spent time on the staffs of the Intiman Theatre and the Seattle Children’s Theatre.
Now based in Brooklyn, NY, Derek’s lighting designs have been seen at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Alvin Ailey Theatre, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Off-Broadway, and the kinds of basements, bars, churches, and teeny-tiny rooms where New York theatre is often forged. Recent designs include work with New York City Opera, Under The Radar, Doug Varone And Dancers, Pittsburgh Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Syracuse Opera, Curtis Institute of Music, The Montana Repertory Theatre, Shreveport Opera, Red Fern Theatre, Actor’s Studio Drama School, LeeSaar The Company, Einey Åm Sparks, Scandanavian American Theatre, Origin Theatre, and The Civilians. His award-winning designs for Butoh Medea (Ren Gyo Soh) have been seen internationally at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, United Solo Europe, and SoloFest’17 in Izmir, Turkey.
In addition to design, Derek has worked as a Lighting Director or Production Manager for Doug Varone and Dancers, Shamel Pitts, Gallim Dance, The Castleton Festival, LeeSaar The Company, and NYMF. He also provides Vectorworks (CAD) drafting services for television and corporate clients. He holds a BFA from the University of Montana, and an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
His many hobbies include playing the ukelele, card and board games, karaoke, attending baseball games (Go Cyclones!), and making it back to the mountains of Montana as often as possible. He also holds the grade of Sankyu in the Japanese martial art of Aikido.