There is another Byrd attempt at the original Broadway logo in one of the Sondheim books. There is a cursive type for the title and I think there is a steel beam coming up and out toward the viewer, with a showgirl standing nearby. Anyone have a scan of it?
Another beautiful David Byrd design. A great deal of his work is highly influenced by Art Nouveau.
Those David Byrd sketches are incredible - where did you get them from (rhetorical question). I've heard of people (well - the Howards of Castle Howard) finding lost Michaelangelo sketches in their attic but those are insignificant in comparison.
Smaxie - I've seen the design you write of as well - is it in Sondheim & Co?
The second best Follies poster IMO is the second London poster which was another ghostly showgirl but this time without a splitting headache.
Still a long way off the genius of Byrd's original (but obviously trying to emulate it) - how could so much genius get concentrated in one musical???
Updated On: 11/21/08 at 06:26 PM
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/31/69
One thing that always interested me about the London production was that I always felt Hal Prince with Maria Bjornson kinda ripped off the Loveland transformation form Prince's own Follies, with Boris Aronson, when they did the opening of Phantom of the Opera with the theatre coming back to the life. (No, I'm not trying to say Phantom is even slightly as good a show as Follies or anything else).
And then Bjornson got to do the same thing with Loveland when she designed Follies a year later. Youtube has (had?) a clip showing a bit of the Loveland transformation as recreated for a tv show and while nothing is Aronson's original designs, it's a worthy attempt. Bjornson using that plastic used in construction sites instead of the curtains she used with Phantom.
David Byrd's gallery has a webpage for him.
http://www.ardtgallery.com/byrd.htm
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