Broadway's largest set desgin — Page 2

The original "My Fair Lady" would never be considered a giant set by today's standards, even though it dazzled folks at the Marc Hellinger with its double turntables back in '56. But that proscenium, along with most of the other shows mentioned above, are all in the standard range of 36' to 40' wide. Even the residents of the New Amsterdam ("Lion King" and "Mary Poppins"), the Ford/ Foxwoods ("Ragtime"), and the Palace ("Aida") don't exceed Broadway norms.

But "Spider-Man" is a special case-- George Tsypin burst the boundaries of the Foxwoods proscenium, both side to side and top to bottom to create what could well be the biggest Broadway set of all time. His design is not only on a giant scale, but constantly full of heavily mechanized set changes too-- big in all senses. He has competition though, from Eugene Lee and especially from John Napier.

John Napier filled the Minskoff with many tons of scenery for "Sunset Boulevard", but weightiest doesn't equal biggest-- his sets were all still contained within the proscenium arch. He went wider still at the Winter Garden for "Cats" with a set that wrapped around the full audience and back, but the Cats design depended more on light bulbs, blowup graphics and atmosphere than on scenery per se. I wouldn't count it as the biggest on Broadway.

Usually the biggest theater = the biggest set. Hence the Gershwin (which started out as the Uris) could probably claim pride of place on Broadway for any show that played there whose set spanned the full room. We're talking the original "Sweeney Todd" and "Wicked", both designed by Eugene Lee and both of which spread out into the house from wall to wall. But John Napier's "Starlight Express at the same theater (which I was one of an army of draftsman on) surpassed those 2 shows by building even more elaborate multilevel set units house right and left, along with elaborate looping ramps out into the orchestra. I'd give it the win. For now.

Updated On: 11/14/12 at 04:15 PM

Great question, Eric. I only worked with John Napier on 2 shows back in the late 80's early 90's-- endless months drafting on 2 different stateside designs for STARLIGHT EXPRESS, and illustrating the original designs for SIEGFRIED & ROY AT THE MIRAGE. I checked an internet website of UK theater-- looks like John is still designing the odd opera or show at the Royal Court. Turns out there was a Trevor Nunn-directed GONE WITH THE WIND back in '08 that John designed which toured the provinces.

Frankly I thought John was one of the true geniuses of musical theater design despite having only rudimentary sketching abilities (everything was discovered in the model-making process, in which John was incredibly hands-on). He could be very hot-or-cold when it came to personal interactions (he pissed a LOT of people off at the '87 Tony's for grudgingly accepting the Costume Design award for Starlight but being apoplectic for it not getting a set nomination as well). But he had a true artist's imagination and could create that visual sense of wonder and alchemy with the poorest materials--broken chairs and strings of lights -- as well as the luxuries that a SUNSET BOULEVARD could afford.

I'd love to see what else his imagination could offer us.

I absolutely agree-- a Napier-designed FOLLIES could have been the best of all possible worlds as long as he had a producer with the money to carry out his grandest schemes. I'm picturing an amalgam of his NICHOLAS NICKLEBY pileup of walkways, ropes and trunks combined with some remnants of his SUNSET BOULEVARD architectural treasures. The last FOLLIES revival was clearly designed on the page 2-dimensionally-- what glory we might have seen had John gone at it with a collaged design through his gorgeous model making process.

One of the biggest sets I've seen is definitely Lord of the Rings in the West End! Spiderman was pretty huge!

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Lord of the Rings was bigger than Time and Metropolis, though the latter ran it close.

Matilda is the victim of its origins on a thrust stage- all the main scenic elements are way upstage. Miss Honey's house is nothing.

Those Aida designs are gorgeous.