Mike Carson made the backdrops for school plays.

Mountains, villages, flat and colorful, that sort of thing. He also ran the lights. He was a tech guy in school theater. He played football at Plainfield North High School, but at heart, he was a theater kid. Even now, living in Los Angeles, he heads to the theater whenever he can. As a child, his parents often took him to Chicago theater. That stuck in surprising ways. So much so, you are familiar with Mike Carson’s work even if you don’t know him by name, or thought of that work as theatrical.

Carson, now the creative director at pgLang in Los Angeles, is one of Kendrick Lamar’s longtime production designers and creative partners. If you’re headed to Solider Field this week to see “The Grand National Tour” featuring Lamar and SZA, know t

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