Designing Broadway Worlds

By JONATHAN MANDELL

“Every show is an excuse to buy a new book,” he says.

To design the ship in Anything Goes, which earned McLane a Tony Award nomination for Best Scenic Design of a Musical, McLane consulted books on luxury ocean liners, on Hollywood in the 20s and 30s, and on Art Deco. He points to the cover of a book called Art Deco in North America by Eva Weber, which features a wooden China Cabinet.

“We used that design for the nightclub scene,” he says, and then points out the model of that set.

Like any set, the model is transformed on stage with the addition of lighting and performers. Here is how McLane’s work looks in production:

Lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski (also nominated for a Tony) was integral to the concept of the production: McLane notes that with the ship itself painted virtually all white, and white the default color of the sky, “we could create a cyclorama, lighting the whole sky and the whole ship to make a light field for the actors.” Individual scenes are bathed in one primary color, typically red or white or blue.

There are eight different locations depicted in Bengal Tiger, a surreal drama about animals and humans wandering through the Iraq War, but none take up the entire stage. McLane simply created different playing areas.

His research included books on topiary: One of the characters is a topiary gardener, and bushes cut to resemble life-sized horses and giraffes and elephants are a prominent feature of the set.

Much of McLane’s research for Bengal Tiger was done online, looking at Islamic art to discern general patterns.  The centerpiece of the set is an Islamic arch set into a wall made up of cut stone screens. When he was finished, he showed his creation to Muslims he knew to make sure nothing was offensive. He was careful not to include text from the Koran on the archway, which is what is written on archways in mosques. “I didn’t want it to be a mosque,” he says.

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Jonathan Mandell is a critic and journalist covering theatre for such publications as The Faster Times , Back Stage and American Theatre. He is on Twitter as @NewYorkTheater