Physioc, Joseph A.

(1865-1951)

   Joseph Allen Physioc was born in Richmond, Virginia, but spent much of his youth in Columbia, South Carolina, before working as a scene designer in Alabama. On the scene painting staff of the Metropolitan Opera for a time (after a brief stint as an actor), Physioc collaborated with Henry E. Hoyt on designs for Raymond De Koven's operetta Rob Roy. From the mid-1890s, he designed scenery for a series of important American plays including Richard Mansfield's production of Richard III (1896), Beau Brummel (1900), The Climbers (1901), Resurrection (1903), Strongheart (1905), The Lion and the Mouse (1905), The Traveling Salesman (1908), Within the Law (1912), Peg O'My Heart (1912), Lightnin' (1918), Seventh Heaven (1922), and Dracula (1927). His work as a disciple of the painted realism of the late 19th century seemed old-fashioned by the 1920s when the New Stagecraft came to the fore.