How did SOUTH win 'Scenic Design' over SITPWG??? — Page 4

the uninspiring SOUTH sets

Ah. The flaw in your logic. Michael Yeargan's work consistently inspires.

Barber of Seville, Metropolitan Opera





Madame Butterfly, San Diego Opera



Cymbeline, Lincoln Center Theater



Aida, Seattle Opera

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Dear dear something. Go ahead and comment. I thought the projections looked like a Powerpoint presentation. Very nicely done and all that, but still: an overgrown Powerpoint presentation. You seem to have thought otherwise. Okay.

My dislike of the production has NOTHING whatever to do with anything you wrote. I did not like it because I thought it was BAD. Period. It has nothing to do with pretending Broadway is like it was 40 years ago, or having another generation to market towards, or anything else. The bottom line is: the cast was BAD, the direction was BAD, the arrangements were BAD.

In my opinion.

Okay. Moving on to other things.

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Fosse 76 You obviously haven't seen the show!

Worrelll you are a dumbass. If you read my previous post in this thread, you'll see why. You are just a complete and perfect example of a classic Tony Voter. It is just as hard to use projections in a set then to build a large, elaborate, physical set.

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Nobody has actually answered the thread title accurately:

How did SOUTH win 'Scenic Design' over SITPWG???

It is a democratic process. South Pacific received more votes for scenic design than Sunday.

Next week, we'll reveal how Mary Poppins can fly.

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What about all that mist that I see sometimes all over the stage. And then it goes away at just the right moment. How do they get the weather to change like that indoors and on queue? Is there a Tony for Best Humidity?

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I feel so sorry for the Sunday Set Design Groupeez in this thread.

Is this how we would have acted if Patti had lost?

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There would have been weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Possibly some storefronts smashed open around RCMH.

Out of interest, how do you spell "oh no she DI-int"? There must be an accepted spelling, but I can't say I've ever come across it written down. If this thread doesn't improve, we may need to use it.

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IT WAS ROBBED>

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What was interesting about a bunch of sand dunes and military maps?

"Did you miss my 'breakdown'?" -- TooDarnHot

No, indeed. I think we all witnessed it.

I quite agree that it is possible to take a reductive standpoint against anything: she's just playing a hammy stage mother/ it's just a sentimental Latino re-hash/ it's just a bunch of pretty stage pictures. It doesn't prove a point. Sunday in the Park does not use Powerpoint; Knifedge used ground-breaking technology which does not deserve such off-hand dismissal.

To say in other words that it doesn't really count as set design or is not as good as architectural scenery, is like saying that an orchestra isn't an orchestra unless it is in the pit. Surely nobody here is entitled to narrow definitions in such a way.

So what were the virtues of Sunday's projection, (apart from the fact that it physically worked, even under full lighting washes)? Well, unlike the previously-mentioned Woman in White, here the projected design enhanced the drama. Having seen the original production, the National Theatre's first London production and the Buntrock show, for me this one released the whole idea of the impermanency of the brush stroke- its erasbility, if you like- in a way that the flying of a scenic item could not. "Colour and light"- that's what the show talks about. And there it is on the stage. Form and content beautifully complimenting each other.

So how did SP win? Because more Tony voters chose it. So now we come to that old chestnut. Well, who are these voters? A group of entirely objective, donnish judges, with no agendas, commercial interests, allegiances or preferences? No. So in very many cases their opinions can be just as flawed as any of us here. And indeed, many admit to voting without even seeing all the shows. So those here who smugly draw on the results of a poll of this group, are hardly able to produce objective, unanswerable proof that they are right. They just got lucky with the maths on this one.

Both designs are very good. Both perform different functions. But I would be very wary of citing a Tony Award as unarguable proof of the superiority of one over the other.

I haven't seen SITPG, but South Pacific's sets took my breath away. Sunday's seem very good too from what I've seen.