Robert Israel is a set and costume designer for opera and theater. His work has been seen at the Lincoln Center Theater, the Metropolitan Opera , the National Operas in London and Tokyo, the Paris Opera, Vienna and many other international locations. Israel's costume drawings are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Obie award. He is currently working on productions of Peter Grimes in Zurich, Verdi's Macbeth in Seattle and Shakespeare's King Lear at The Center Stage in Baltimore. Israel has designed the world premieres of four operas by Philip Glass and is the former Chairman of the Theater Department at UCLA.