Faculty

Kitty Doris-Bates teaches production design courses in the UCLA TFT Department of Theater.

After receiving her B.F.A. in fine art and architecture from The Cooper Union, she began her professional career as an advertising art director in New York City. A year later, she left advertising behind to volunteer on a Kibbutz in Israel. It was there that she was seen drawing and was asked to work on an archeological dig, creating floor plans of an excavation site. That experience led to digs around the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and years of travel and exploration in Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and Africa.

Upon her return to the United States in 1988, Doris-Bates decided to pursue film and television design, receiving her M.F.A. in production design from the American Film Institute. Since that time, her many production designer credits have included a number of HBO series such as From the Earth to the Moon, Big Love, Getting On, The Comeback and Ballers; the HBO movie Grand Avenue; NBC’s American Dreams; FX’s The Shield; ABC Family’s Lincoln Heights; Sundance Channel’s The Red Road; and Netflix’s Santa Clarita Diet.

She is currently working on the Netflix series AJ and the Queen.