Arden Fingerhut was born in 1945, and grew up in
St. Louis Park, Minnesota. She was an undergraduate at
New York University and received an M.F.A. in design from
Columbia University. She married Dennis McHugh, and had a daughter Maude. Fingerhut designed the lighting for dozens of Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including
Da,
Bent,
Hay Fever,
Plenty and
Driving Miss Daisy. She also designed the lighting for regional companies such as the
Long Wharf Theatre in
New Haven, Connecticut, and the
Williamstown Theatre Festival. In 1982 Fingerhut received an
Obie Award for sustained excellence in
lighting design. From 1987 until her death in 1994 she was a professor of theatre at
Williams College, where she also served as a chairman of the theatre department. She was a trustee of the Williamstown Theatre Festival and a director of the
Theatre Communications Group in New York. Fingerhut died of
breast cancer at the
North Adams Regional Hospital on May 13, 1994. ==Works==