Jefferson Ridenour is a NYC based artist that designs sets and narrative worlds for opera, theatre, ballet and film blending in-depth dramaturgy and history with compositions of boldness, innovation and poetry. His designs have been described by critics as, “colorful, versatile, evocative and chockfull of subtle thematic commentary and visual character clues.”
His passion for opera has led to 50+ professional designs for companies and educational institutions across the U.S.; including Arizona Opera, Opera Delaware, Opera Baltimore, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Portland Opera, Eugene Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Amarillo Opera, Pensacola Opera, West Edge Opera, Knoxville Opera, Charlottesville Opera, Annapolis Opera, Central City Opera, Janiec Opera Company, William Jewell College, San Diego State University and the University of Houston Moores Opera with many esteemed directors; including Chuck Hudson, Dean Anthony, Kaley Karis Smith, Octavio Cardenas, Kyle Lang, Frances Rabalais, Kathleen Belcher and his longtime creative partner and friend, Fenlon Lamb. With Lamb, he is the co-creator and scenic designer of Papermoon Opera Productions, a cohesive design and production company that explores alternative and environmentally conscious mediums and methods to elevate artistic value while energizing community involvement. https://www.papermoonopera.com/
In NYC Theatre, he designed Party Face (City Center), Duck (IRT Theatre) and the world digital premiere of Lights on the Radio Tower musical during the Covid pandemic. Since the pandemic, Jefferson has been exploring new opportunities in digital content creation in Scenic/Projection design roles and most recently was the Production Designer and Art Director for Peter Giakoumis’ short supernatural thriller, The Tower Protocol: Resurrection. For this film, he won Best Production Design in the INSPIRE Cinema Fest 2025 and the film overall has won awards in multiple categories for 20+ film festivals across the world.
Always interested in finding ventures that combine bold storytelling with other avenues in the arts , Jefferson is also the Art Director for The Mischievous Maestro Podcast and the Owner of @TheOffstageCurator, an Instagram Vintage and Antique Shop that fuses drama and gothic beauty into curations. Jefferson has a MFA in Scenic Design from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and is a Proud Member of Local USA 829.