Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s 2016 opera Fellow Travelers, set during the “Lavender Scare” in 1950s Washington, D.C., centers on two gay government workers who pursue a love affair amid the specter of political persecution. The story’s connection to present-day queer issues inspired a winning team of the 2023 Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize, whose production concept for Fellow Travelers is on view at the National Opera Center through the spring.

Director Ian Silverman and his teammates — scenic designer James Rotondo, lighting designer Marcella Barbeau, costume designer Travis Chinick, and choreographer Nora Winsler — set the entire opera within a pilastered, bureaucratic hallway meant to evoke governmental surveillance. Throughout the opera, the team employs a group of six supernumeraries who loom in the background of scenes, representing the M Unit task force whose job it was to identify “sexual deviants.” Chinick’s costumes are based on mid-20th-century styles and employ dark, neutral colors for Tim and Hawk’s costumes in their most closeted moments and more subtly colorful costumes when the men are living as their more authentic selves.

The team behind this Fellow Travelers production is one of four winners of OA’s most recent Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize. The remaining two winning teams of the Director-Designer Prize will have their work featured in rotating exhibitions at the Opera Center later this year.

The Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize is supported by the Tobin Theatre Arts Fund.