They Had No Money In The Budget For A Set — Page 2

I love the set for Finian's...I think it's really lovely and it serves the story. I feel like big, elaborate sets work for some shows when done well (i.e. the gorgeous Mary Poppins set) but a lot of shows just work better with the minimal set that helps them tell the story rather than being a character unto itself, if that makes any sense.

"So....we're not talking about the Mendes GYPSY?"

I don't see why you can't substitute "Mendes GYPSY" for 'Patti LuPone GYPSY' - this 'set' also had no walls, was very bland/basic too etc..

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I have a feeling if we were able to go back in time and see the original productions of some of the classic shows people would be shocked at how "cheap" they look (by the standards of the past few years), and Roxy would be complaining about the $7.90 he shelled out.

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I thought the Finian's Rainbow set looked like a fairy tale pop-up book...perfect for this story.

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I thought FINIAN looked like an indoor version of Beatty's set for TWELFTH NIGHT.

"I sometimes wonder if any of you have actually seen these shows of just looked at pictures?"
I've seen Finian's Rainbow, Ragtime, Birdie, Memphis, and Night Music. Thank you.

I know, ljay, don't you hate it when people know make assumptions about what others have and haven't seen when they clearly don't know any better?


I think judging a production based on the lavishness of the sets is absolutely ridiculous. Anyone who places the importance of shiny objects to distract them above that of the performance of the material needs to get out of their multi-million dollar mega-musical rut and see something way off Broadway.

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No, I haven't spent the past 6 months obsessing over the Best Revival Tony like you have. As it is, I was excited to see Angela Lansbury onstage for the first time. That's it. I was underwhelmed by the casting from when it was first announced, and have never been a big fan of the show. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it had nothing to do with Ragtime.


To get away from ljay's hypocrisy and back on topic-

I was under the impression that the purpose of sets was to enhance the material, not to be so over-the-top and expensive that it's the first/only thing worth of mention in a production. Of all the shows I've seen over the past year, the one that moved me the most was a production of Angels in America, where the set consisted of a few pieces of interchangeable furniture on a thrust stage. If someone were to write that off because the set designer didn't blow thousands of dollars on Antarctican snow and a replica of San Francisco, that's their loss.

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Updated On: 12/7/09 at 01:23 AM