Other noted designs included the world premiere of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge with award-winning actor Richard Harris (1956), and A Moon for the Misbegotten at the now-demolished Bijou Theatre (1956).6 7 The Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) notes that Watson also designed Girls of Summer and Protective Custody in 1956, the musical review Mask and Gown, The Cave Dwellers, Miss Isobel, and the musical comedy Portofino in 1957.
The Lee Watson papers date from 1941 to 1989 and document his career as a lighting educator and designer for theater, opera, and other live events.
[5] Watson is listed in the IMDB as the lighting director in 1951 for one of the first episodes of the 1950s game show Down You Go, filmed in Chicago for the Dumont Television Network.
His students remember his precise questions about a project's clues as to the design needed.5 The dancer Loie Fuller was a favorite subject when describing the integration of light with performance.10 Watson died at home in Lafayette, IN in 1989 after a long struggle with Leukemia.5 After his death, a bright, periwinkle bowtie was attached to the lighting grid in the (now defunct) Experimental Theatre in Stewart Center on the Purdue campus.5 He was survived by his parents, Dallas V. and Hazel Dooley Watson of Charleston.7 Watson served on the board of directors of the International Association of Lighting Designers and of United Scenic Artists local #829 in New York City.
Watson worried on more than one occasion that his parents, who were his only living family, would dispose of all the history materials, stacked neatly with hundreds of photos in his Purdue office.