Helen Pond, internationally known scenic designer, died peacefully at her Yarmouth Port, Mass. home on Tuesday, April 11, 2017 after a brief period of declining health.
Helen, together with her longtime colleague and collaborator, Herbert Senn, designed Broadway sets for What Makes Sammy Run?; Roar Like a Dove; Oh, Coward; and the 1982 revival of Showboat. They also designed sets for The Boys from Syracuse, both for Off-Broadway and the Drury Lane production in London. As a team, Pond and Senn designed scenery for hundreds of productions, most notably at the Opera Company of Boston, Boston Ballet, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera and The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Mass., where they worked for 38 seasons.
Helen was born in Cleveland, Ohio on June 26, 1924, and was raised in Shaker Heights and Hudson, Ohio. She was the daughter of Charlotte A. (Waters) and Ralph H. Pond, and granddaughter of Col. Daniel H. Pond, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and prominent Cleveland banker. Helen was a graduate of the Grier School in Birmingham, Penn., where she excelled at figure skating and fencing, and especially enjoyed riding her beloved horse, Duchess. She received a B.F.A. from Ohio State University, and attended Columbia University School of Dramatic Arts. She was a member of United Scenic Artist Local 829.
Helen began her theatre career working at the Chagrin Falls Summer Theatre in Ohio before attending Columbia, where she met Herbert. Together they became a seamless design team. After many student productions, they continued to collaborate professionally on productions for Off-Broadway, the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania and Clinton Playhouse in Connecticut. They quickly became unique among American scenic designers, preferring to paint their own scenery when union rules permitted. They rarely used any assistants. Pond and Senn were the principal designers for Sarah Caldwell’s Opera Company of Boston for more than 30 years. Among their more notable productions were: War and Peace; Aida; Mass; Falstaff; Don Pasquale; The Trojans; and the American premiere of Ruslan and Ludmila. Voyage to the Moon was performed on the East Room stage of the White House for Lyndon B. Johnson and the Apollo astronauts in 1967; and The Balcony at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre in 1991. Pond and Senn were also known for their elaborate designs for Boston Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, a set that was used continuously for more than 35 years, including several major revamps. They were the first recipients of the Elliot Norton Awards’ Robert Edmund Jones prize for “Outstanding Boston Designer” in 1991. They also received the “Balletic Medal of Honor” from the Boston Ballet in 1995 Pond and Senn designed productions for many other theatre companies, including The New York City Opera, The Houston Grand Opera, The Vivian Beaumont Theatre and The Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey. They traveled extensively, designing for the Theatre Guild’s “Theatre-at-Sea” cruises, including venues in Istanbul, Venice and at the Manaus Opera House in Brazil.
Pond was hired as Assistant Scenic Designer at The Cape Playhouse in 1954. Two summers later, she returned with Senn as co-set designer. Every week for 38 seasons, as the stage curtain rose for a new show, their sets drew enthusiastic applause from summer audiences. Pond and Senn also had two successful exhibits at the Cape Museum of Fine Arts in Dennis, Stealing the Show: Forty Years of Stage Design in 1998; and Stealing the Show II in 2001. Those shows featured some of the renderings and intricate scale models created for their stage designs. Stealing the Show II also traveled to the York Theatre in Manhattan. The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod awarded Helen a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Helen purchased a deconsecrated Unitarian Universalist Church in Yarmouth Port, Mass. in 1974. A labor of love over 30 years, she and Herbert transformed the meetinghouse into their home, “Strawberry Hill,” a showplace of Gothic architecture modeled after Horace Walpole’s 18th century “Gothick” villa at Twickenham, London. The interior features ornate carving, gold-leafing, a restored 1830 pipe organ, and trompe l’oeil murals and ceiling panels. The much-photographed home is featured in “Cape Cod Gardens and Houses”, published by Simon and Schuster. Many friends attended artistically decorated Christmas parties there, and occasional candle-lit evenings of “Musick at Strawberry Hill.”
Helen and Herbert were married at the church shortly before Herbert’s death in August, 2003. Helen always drove convertibles, preferably blue Fords, until her last car, a red Mustang. She played tennis until age 86, and was a docent at the Edward Gorey House. A remarkably talented artist, she set exacting standards, and expected everyone she worked with to rise to those levels. Helen loved the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots, and would watch any tennis match available. She was a big fan of Venus and Serena Williams, Andy Roddick and especially Rafa Nadal.
In addition to Herbert and her parents, Helen is predeceased by her older sister Elizabeth. She is survived by a niece and four nephews and their spouses and children. She had an enduring influence on dozens of colleagues and aspiring theatre professionals during her career, and leaves behind many dear friends. A heartfelt thank-you to the members of Team Pond for their extraordinary and loving care of Helen during the last few years; and to the VNA of Cape Cod. Burial will be private. A memorial celebration will be held at a later date. Donations in Helen’s name may be made to The Cape Playhouse, 820 Main St., PO Box 2001, Dennis, MA 02638.

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