There are a lot of surprises in talking with James Noone, set designer for the Public Theater's "Amadeus," now in previews.

To start, he doesn't much like scenery, in spite of having created some of the Public's most splendid designs. "I'm not very fond of scenery," he says. "I like dramatic space."

Next, he works constantly -- "I'm one of the more successful designers in America," he says matter-of-factly -- and yet it's a precarious living that requires him to support himself with a "day job" in academe.

And third, although he's designed some 21 shows at the Public over a dozen years, he's pretty much invisible. The major crack in his anonymity was the Public's 2005 exhibit of his stage designs, called "Rough Magic," in connection with his designs then for "The Tempest."

But Noone is well known to the Public's audience, if indirectly, through the grandeur of his designs for "Oedipus" or "Mary Stuart," the appealing polish of his "The Importance of Being Earnest" or "The Mikado" or, just last fall, the wit of his "The Comedy of Errors."

Those and "Amadeus" are just a third of the shows he's done at the Public, including memorable designs for "Cabaret," "Ain't Misbehavin' " and "Man of La Mancha." He is especially fond of his first at the Public, "Sweeney Todd" (1996), at the old space on the North Side, and of "Mary Stuart." For that epic he decided to see how minimal he could get, using "two benches, six doors and a black mirror wall -- thrilling."

Noone typically creates vertical theatricality, and he is also known for dealing creatively with floors, as "Amadeus" will show.

"Amadeus" is the well-known 1979 drama by Englishman Peter Shaffer, whose body of work is so impressive (including "Equus" and "Lettice and Lovage") that he is being inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame Monday. The lead role is Antonio Salieri, who conspires against his competitor, the young genius, Mozart.

Noone's strongest connection to the Public is with producing artistic director Ted Pappas, who has himself directed many of the shows Noone has designed, including this "Amadeus." Noone says that connection goes back 23 years. Two small musicals he'd designed closed in Washington, and he arrived in New York without money. He was working in the scene shop at Playwrights Horizons when artistic director Andre Bishop (now head of Lincoln Center) paired him with Pappas on George Wolfe's "Paradise."

To explain why he likes to work with Pappas, Noone says most American theaters, even not-for-profits like the Public, focus on the bottom line. "So they rarely take risks. Many are geared to what might get to Broadway, not to making a good show for the audience. They're about supporting front offices, not the work."

But he enjoys working at the Public because "Ted believes in letting actors develop and grow. Here it's really about challenging yourself as an artist and creating something for the community, not about getting to Broadway."

Noone bases this on having "worked at practically every theater in America." It's almost possible that he has. Although he's just 46, his portfolio includes 14 shows on Broadway -- most notably, "Jekyll & Hyde," for which he won a Drama Desk Award, and a number of recent, high-profile revivals ("Judgement at Nuremberg," "The Rainmaker," "Inherit the Wind") and, currently running, " A Bronx Tale" and "Come Back Little Sheba." And he's done even more off-Broadway, notably "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune," "Three Tall Women" and "Breaking Legs," plus regular work for such New York not-for-profits as the Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center and Roundabout.

But even more of Noone's work has been coast-to-coast at several dozen leading regional theaters (including Pittsburgh CLO). He's also designed extensively for opera, from New York to L.A., and for Emmy-winning TV versions of Broadway musicals.

It's what he's wanted to do since he grew up in Glens Falls, N.Y., where as a teenager he worked for the opera at Lake George and theater and dance at Saratoga. "What I love most is dance," he says, pointing out that the Public's O'Reilly Theater stage is "like a big dance space."

He went to college at Boston University, where he is now head of the scene design program. But he was dissatisfied with the program when he was a student. "I'd known how to build and paint scenery since I was 12. I wanted a place where the art of the theater is taught as much as the craft."

Now, as head of the program, he pushes in that direction, fighting against specialization. "We need to be people who make theater. If everyone's focused on one job, they lose sight of that."

He doesn't even let his new students use theaters, requiring them to "find out how to use space" by discovering it around Boston. "They come with wonderful projects, amazing designs."

But the business of design isn't easy. "I have to pay for all my stuff -- assistants, drafting, models, studio space." The average design model, for example, can eat up half the usual designer's fee of $6,000. Fortunately, at the Public, where he's well known, he gets by with sketches or rough models.

But as a result, "you have to do a huge number of productions to pay your rent and insurance." In 2007 alone, Noone designed 18 shows. Just ahead on his design plate are three classics at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., a musical at Boston's Huntington Theatre and "Macbeth" at the Chicago Lyric Opera.

"There's no money to be made in theater," he says, so "you have to do it because you're passionate." That brings him back to the Public, where he loves working with Pappas and his team.

He reels off their names -- Kirk Bookman (guest lighting designer), Gay Kahkonen (props), Chip Eccles (technical director), Celeste Parrendo ("one of the best painters in America"), Todd Kulik (carpentry) -- "and they're all local. I can be collaborative here."