Sher and the White Wall: Every Production?! — Page 2

The wall flies up to reveal the bright white light of Loveland

neonlightsxo said: "Actors moving set pieces is Bart."

I would guess it's just much a budgetary concern as it is an artistic decision. Automation adds a lot of expense to the budget, and of course it does pose some limitations to the direction as well ("this scene has to play in this exact spot because that's where the automation track goes and we can't afford another track".

He's also not the only director who has had cast or crew moving set pieces. I recall seeing plenty of that in the 2008 revival of Gypsy, and I know a choreographer who was in the ensemble of Kathleen Marshall's revival of The Pajama Game that said they made out like bandits because of the number of times they were doing scene changes that they had to be paid extra for (Equity has mapped out specific rules for when an actor can be involved in a scene change and any instances that don't fall under those guidelines require extra payments for those moves).