DAVID ROCKWELL INTERVIEW
Images: Kinky Boots. Photography by Paul Warchol (main and below)
crystal curtain, we incorporated three circular platforms that acted as moving turntables on stage, creating multiple projection opportunities and many different ways to reveal nominees and presenters. Framing the presenters and performers were multiple open metal screens that were partially transparent and configured with modern decorative patterns inspired by abstract modernist decorations. Clear, smoked, frosted, polished, and bevelled mirrors were used both in the
auditorium and on major pieces of the sets to blur the boundary between audience and stage. Both sets became dazzling, intimate experiences for presenters and audiences alike.
How has theatre design evolved? Technology has opened up all sorts of new possibilities for set design. The increasing use of computer generated imagery can be a very powerful tool in making the live experience even more potent and lasting. Projections are a way to transform scenes in an instant, and add even more unexpected, reactive
features to the traditional design scheme.
Tell us about your latest projects We just completed set designs for Kinky Boots and Lucky Guy which both opened on Broadway this spring. The musical adaptation of the 2005 British film Kinky Boots, directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, features music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and a book by Harvey Fierstein. The story follows Charlie Price as he saves his family’s shoe factory with the help of Lola, a vivacious drag queen. I worked with Jerry on Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, and Legally Blonde, so I’m thrilled to be reuniting with him in Kinky Boots as set designer. The play primarily takes place in an aging shoe factory in Northampton, England. We created an abstracted collage of a factory in which light shifts and actor-manipulated bits of scenery reveal peripheral scenes from pubs to drag clubs. Throughout the play, theatre-goers are transported to the shoe factory and other areas around Northampton. To
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help achieve this effect, we designed a two-tiered factory office unit as a rolling platform with two companion mobile staircases. Performers are able to manipulate the platform and create a variety of spatial configurations for the different locations. We also worked with Jerry Mitchell in designing four fully functional conveyer belts that are incorporated in to the choreography and appear throughout the show. The final scene of the show takes place at the Milan International Shoe Fair. Three drapery pieces fly in to cover
the outside walls of the factory. A flashing “Bubble Light Wall,” composed of more than 1,500 light bulbs attached to a mirrored surface, helps create a high fashion funhouse that stands in stark contrast to the iron and brick world of the shoe factory. Directed by George C.
Wolfe, and starring Tom Hanks, Lucky Guy is the late Nora Ephron’s play about the Pulitzer Prize-winning news columnist Mike McAlary. Set in the 1980s and 1990s, the minimalist backdrop recreates the grittier days of
Manhattan. The entire rear
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