Favorite Set Designs — Page 10

Richard Finkelstein's set for The Desperate Hours
Richard Finkelstein's massive portfolio

Little Women on broadway, Derek McLane.

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Aida


And I always loved the design of Elisabeth (these are from the German production in Essen)...

this is not a great picture, but it gives you some idea of the 1973 environmental staging of Candide. I found the photo in an eBay listing of the program. Somewhere in my Dad's basement I probably have the original cast album from that production. I think there were a number of photos from the show within the fold.

Chrysler99,

Thanks so much for the photo. I too saw Candide and I remember the peanuts, although I don't remember the crunching being a problem.

Hey can someone bump the costume design thread that was mentioned?
TIA

No. The mezzanine and balcony were mostly covered over. Basically, as I remembered it, the "environment" was built from where the mezzanine overhangs the orchestra, all the way back to the back wall of the stage area. The best seats were stools in the center with no backs and you had to swivel around to see the action as it traveled around you. the sides were like bleachers and did have backs, but the seating wasn't traditional. It was benches covered in canvas with the numbers pained on the canvas to distinguish the different seating locations. There were many stages (the number 10 comes to mind) that were scattered around the room with ramps connecting these playing areas. It was very clever and a lot of fun.

Yes the revised score was amazing.

The Young Frankenstein set was the best part of the whole production, and was the one thing that really seemed authentic and faithful to the style of the movie.

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Yeah, "In The Heights" is pretty...but there's not that much to it.

And "Candide" does sound amazing. So, how many seats were there in the audience? I mean the Broadway is a big house.

I don't have any pictures, but the set for the upcoming 9 to 5 is simply the most stunning set I've ever seen on Broadway, especially how quickly they can change it.

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The Broadway had 900 seats for 1974 Candide.

Many great designs have been mentioned but two that haven't been are Adrienne Lobel's designs for the original Broadway production of Passion and Marina Draghici's designs for the NYSF production of The Skriker.

Even though the former was filmed, the film gives you very little sense of how stunning a few of the drops were. And the scene on the mountain was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It was a mix of the drop, Fosca's costume and the lighting, all these shades of green that produced an extraordinary, hallucinatory quality. Watching the film, you don't get what was so amazing live.

Photos of The Skriker are online at

http://www.proofsheet.com/public_theater/skriker/source/076.htm

Unfortunately, even though there's a bunch of photos of the scene that was especially extraordinary (again, one that created a kind of hallucinatory effect), what was special about the set doesn't come across (though the wonderful costumes can be seen).

I should mention that I got my 900 number from Prince's book, Contradictions: Notes on Twenty-Six Years in the Theatre.