New York.com - Secrets of a Broadway Set Designer

Tony-winning set designer Derek McLane on the inspiration behind his work on ‘The Heiress,’ ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ‘The Last Five Years,’ and this year’s Oscars

By David Sheward

Tony-winning set designer Derek McLane has had a busy season. He celebrated his 30th Broadway show with Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the adaptation of Truman Capote’s classic novella centering on the antics of the high-spirited party girl Holly Golighty (played by Emilia Clarke of HBO’s Games of Thrones). McLane’s versatile set evoked dozens of locations in 1940s Manhattan through a hazy lens of memory. He also recreated an abstract version of contemporary New York in Second Stage’s Off-Broadway revival of the two-character musical The Last Five Years, and the same city again, this time 19thcentury, in the Broadway production of The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty). In addition, he created the dazzling sets for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.

The 54-year-old McLane was born in London, where his father was a graduate student at the University of London. The family moved back to the states—Evanston, Illinois to be exact—where his dad taught history. After designing a set for a production of Guys and Dolls, the young McLane had found his calling and enrolled at the Yale School of Design in 1980 to learn his art. After graduation, he made designs for theater and opera all over the United States. In the 1990s, he began accumulating awards and nominations, including two Obies for sustained achievement (1997 and 2004), a Lortel Award forThe Voysey Inheritance (2007), and the Best Scenic Design Tony Award for 33 Variations (2009), as well as Tony nominations for The Pajama Game and Ragtime.

NewYork.com recently spoke with McLane about the inspiration and process behind his latest Broadway and Hollywood creations.


Model of ‘The Heiress’ set

What inspired the dark, heavy drawing room of Dr. Sloper [David Straithairn] in The Heiress?

I did a lot of research into 1850, the period of the play, and saw some of the existing houses on the north side of Washington Square, where the play takes place, which are now owned by NYU. The house is almost a character in the play. Morris [Dan Stevens], the young man who courts the doctor’s daughter Catherine [Jessica Chastain], longs for it and it becomes an aspiration for him. I wanted to strike a balance between the incredible wealth of that house, which Morris covets, and the austerity of Dr. Sloper’s personality. He’s not a particularly warm character; he has an almost puritanical work ethic and strong opinions about money. He avoids ostentation. So creating a sense of wealth without flashiness was what I was trying to achieve.


The complete set of ‘The Heiress’

How deep did you go on the research?

There were a lot of photographs of houses of the period in the New York Historical Society and several really terrific books including one called Opulent Interiors of New York of the 19th Century. Literally walking around the neighborhood of Washington Square, the director Moises Kaufman and I went on appointments to see the inside some of the NY houses. We also introduced ourselves to a couple of strangers who lived there and got them to show us their houses. We also went to the Merchant House on Third Street, which has been left in its original condition since the 19th century. It’s where they filmed some of the film The Heiress.

I really pushed the color palette in the set. There are a lot of colors, many different shades of leather, brown, dark red, as well as black. There are shades of color all closely related. My goal was to create a sense of richness, but also have it feel very subdued. I was trying to create a sense of restrained wealth. I layered as much detail as I could into the woodwork and the wall so that every inch of it had dimensions. The wallpaper was made out of lace that we had milled in Scotland. It had its own texture, then we painted it white and dyed it to a leather color and then painted the pattern on top of that, to create a layered sense of richness and wealth.



Model of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ set

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

This play takes in multiple locations. How did you address those challenges in your set design?

Yes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s happens in a million different places and sometimes simultaneously in more than one place. There are so many split-screen scenes and so many times the writer Fred [played by Cory Michael Smith] steps in and out of direct address to the audience because it’s a memory play. You flash forward and backwards in time. It has to move very fluidly, you can’t have any set pieces that are terribly solid. And some of the scenes are only a few minutes. So it almost moves like a musical. The mood is smoky and ephemeral; it’s very much a memory piece. It’s told as a kind of flashback. So I made everything out of scrim.


‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ set

[cont'd] There were panels that tracked across the stage, printed with very large photographs of New York in the 1940s by Andreas Feininger, a great photographer of the period. We got the rights from his estate and we made collages of them and printed them on the scrims. At time, we layered projected imagery on top of that, to create a diaphanous feeling where we could see through one room into another. Even the little bits of wall that we had in Fred’s and Holly’s room were made of scrim so they could be lit through and have a less solid feeling.

We wanted this to reflect Fred’s experience of Holly. He tells the story from the point of view of Holly being this amazing person, but she’s gone and he doesn’t know where she is. She’s vanished into thin air. It’s almost as if you don’t know if she existed or not. It’s also a smoky, jazzy era in New York and the photographs captured that sense of a hazy, gauzy city.

Model of ‘The Last Five Years’ set

THE LAST FIVE YEARS

What inspired you to use all these window frames in the set design?

A couple of things. Jason Robert Brown, the director and composer of the show, and I wanted to feature the musicians throughout the evening. So we arranged them on the backwall of the set. That’s the first thing you see when you walk in is the musicians taking their places. One of the remarkable things that made that possible is they memorized their music so they didn’t need music stands or sheet music. That meant we could really control how to light them. The reason for putting them there was the piece so much about the music. It’s sung-through and, except for one scene, there’s always only one character on stage the whole time. It’s always one person singing to him or herself so the musicians become very important.

We also wanted to convey a sense of New York with the windows. Like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but in a completely different way. The windows go away when we’re not in New York. They are meant to create a cityscape in a way that’s as delicate as possible so the musicians are only partially hidden. I felt the windows convey a sense of what might be going on in other lives in other buildings. They create a sense of that without actually using buildings.


‘The Last Five Years’ set

Is there a difference between designing for Broadway and Off-Broadway?

I approach every project as uniquely as I can. I try to figure what is right for a particular show, what will tell the story in the best way possible. It’s true you have greater resources on Broadway.


Model of the 85th Academy Awards stage design

THE 2013 ACADEMY AWARDS

What was the inspiration for the fabulous, glittering set for this year’s Oscars?

The Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron made the theme the music of the movies. That was explored in a variety of ways throughout the show. In the most abstract way, I was riffing on celebrating that aspect of the movies. I looked at a lot of Busby Berkeley imagery and was taken by the kaleidoscopic repeating patterns in his musical films. Craig and Neil also asked me to design the show so that it would feel like my own work. They said, “We don’t want this to look like any other Oscar show, we want this to be something that you’re excited about.” They specifically cited some of the things that I had done on Broadway as something to riff on. Shows like I Am My Own Wife, 33 Variations, and the revival of How to Succeed[starring Daniel Radcliffe] which had a lot of ordinary objects, but repeated and lit in the right way become quite beautiful. Craig and Neil were two of the producers on How to Succeed, so that’s how I got to know them.

The Oscars incorporated this use of repeated objects. The curved proscenium had about a thousand Oscars on little shelves. Each one had its own lighting and color so that from a distance they looked like a pattern but in close up each was a beautiful individual object. There was also a shelf of about 50 old movie projectors, each with its own up-light. It was this imagery that I played with for the Oscars. The goal was to make all these things look glittery, though they were everyday things like projectors.


Charlize Theron on the completed set of the 85th Academy Awards

Were there any big differences between designing for a big TV production and Broadway?

The network people were slightly terrifying at times. The biggest difference is with the Oscars, you’re not telling a story. Whenever I work on a Broadway play or musical, I start with a script or the text that creates the story. With the Oscars, you’re starting more with themes and ideas than a story.

Did you feel more pressure because millions of people would be watching it?

Yes, I felt a lot of pressure. Sitting at home and critiquing the Oscars is an American sport and I was aware that was going to happen and tried not to let that intimidate me. But that’s part of the thrill and excitement of doing it.

Read More Here

Playbill - Set Designer Derek McLane Takes Playbill Inside the Worlds of The Heiress, Last Five Years, Tiffany's and More

Derek McLane
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Tony Award-winning set designer Derek McLane's 30th Broadway production, Breakfast at Tiffany's, transports audiences into the smoky haze of 1940s New York City. McLane shared insight and photos from his recent projects with Playbill.com.

As audiences entered the Walter Kerr Theatre this fall, they were invited to the grand and opulent home of Dr. Austin Sloper and his daughter Catherine in Broadway's The Heiress.
"My inspiration for The Heiress was that I wanted to tell a story about the wealth of the Sloper family, but also, at the same time, try to convey the sense of restraint that also exists in that family," said McLane about the recent Broadway revival that starred Oscar winner Jessica Chastain as the play's title character. "The house has to exude enough wealth and enough grandeur that Morris [played by Dan Steven] sort of immediately responds to it. It's not only a place he wants to be because it was nice, it's a place he aspires to live [in]… For me, that was a subtle balance — trying to achieve both of those things at the same time."

Augustus Goetz and Ruth Goetz's 1947 drama sets the Sloper family in 1850s Washington Square, New York City. The action takes place at the Doctor's (David Strathairn) home, an object of desire for Morris Townsend, the middle-class young man who courts Catherine, the heiress.

"I did a lot of research looking at houses of that period, both in photographs and going around Washington Square. I went to Merchant's House, which is near Washington Square," said McLane. "It was useful in terms of seeing the layout of the architecture, but, in fact, I ended up adding a lot more detail than were in those real houses."

	A set rendering for Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Details at the Sloper home included walls made of lace ("We had the lace milled in Scotland, by a mill in Scotland," added McLane.), period furniture and a majestic staircase — a character, in itself, in Broadway's The Heiress — that protruded into the center of the stage.

"The combination of red and black seems very wealthy. That's just kind of a powerful, classical combination," added McLane on his choice of color.

About the famous staircase, he said, "I don't know that very many people are aware of this: That staircase moved very, very slowly in the last scene — so slow that it was imperceptible, but it came forward into the room before Catherine Sloper ascended the staircase. It moved about four or five feet during that last scene… When [director] Moisés Kaufman and I were studying the model, we were looking at where to place the staircase during the last scene so that it was fully in view for every single seat in the audience and that it felt as important as we wanted it to feel."

As the play ends, Catherine famously exits by ascending the staircase. "There couldn't be anything that was left too plain," said McLane of the Broadway revival.

For the remainder of the article plus pictures and videos follow the link Here

Take a Tour of THE HEIRESS Broadway Set with Derek McLane

Entertainment Weekly - Derek McLane Sets the Stage for This Years Oscars

Scenic designer Derek McLane on setting the stage for this year's Oscars

by Nakisha WilliamsFebruary 20, 2013

The theme of the 85th Academy Awards is music in the movies, so to create the stage, Tony-winning set designer Derek McLane went back to his theater roots.

“[Producers] Neil Meron and Craig Zadan mentioned a number of my more adventurous Broadway designs when they asked me to design the Oscars, and suggested that I might find a way to riff on some those motifs,” says McLane, who met Meron and Zadan when he worked on their 2011 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. “They were interested in my coming up with something new, something that did not look like previous Oscar shows. They encouraged me to think boldly and explore previously untried ideas.”

Tasked with boldly going where no Academy Awards scenic designer has gone before, McLane, whose Broadway credits include 33 Variations–for which he won the Tony Award win for best set design in 2009–The Heiress, and the soon-to-open Breakfast at Tiffany’s, referenced old movie musicals, the geometric big screen dance routines dreamed up by Hollywood choreographer Busby Berkley, and a variety of musical instruments.

“Neil and Craig stressed the importance of making the Oscars a ‘show,’ not only for the audience watching on television, but also for the folks sitting in the Dolby,” McLane explains. “It is our hope that if we can create a stage show that is really exciting for the live audience, the television viewers will feel that excitement.”

Though he’s not allowed to share specifics before the stage is unveiled on Oscar night, McLane promises that there are “a couple of great surprises in store, some of which make clever use of antique movie equipment.” Visual effects will also come into play. “Ted, the bear from the movie Ted will be presenting an award.  We tried training a live bear to do the sequence, but it just didn’t look right, so you are in for some cool special effects.”

Read the Story Here

Live Design Magazine - 5 Questions With Derek McLane

5 Questions With Derek McLane, Scenic Designer

Mar. 6, 2013

Ellen Lampert-Greaux | livedesignonline

1. As a contemporary scenic designer, how do you approach a period play such as The Heiress, which you recently designed for a revival on Broadway at The Walter Kerr?
I had seen the Lincoln Center production, starring Cherry Jones, and thought it was extraordinary. Naturally, I read the play several times. I always start with a lot of research on a period, and as I work on the design as a contemporary designer, I know that I will be attracted to certain parts of the research and not others. Contemporary period and tastes influence and color every so-called “period” design, whether by conscious choice or not. As evidence, you need only look at some of the big period movies made in the 1970s and check out the hair and lipstick, or the type fonts on the building signs, or the color palettes, and you will see the style of the ‘70s everywhere. All of those features helped those movies feel alive and immediate to their audiences.Photos Derek McLane Studio

2. I understand you visited historic homes on Washington Square here in New York.

The director, Moises Kaufman, and I visited several period homes on Washington Square, some by invitation and some spontaneously. We went to the Merchant House, which, though not actually on Washington Square, is only a few blocks away, and has been preserved in its original state since the 1850s. I was struck by how plain much of it was. We also went on pre-arranged tours of a number of houses on the north side of Washington Square where the Sloper family would have lived. Those houses are now owned by NYU and are mostly used as offices. The detail in a few of those is quite luxurious, with really wonderful period, neo-classical features.
We did have one curious experience. There are a few NYU-owned buildings still used as residences, and we saw a man emerge from his home. We introduced ourselves and asked if we might take a look at his house. He warned us that the house had been altered and would not represent what would have been true in the 1850s. In fact, the tall-ceilinged living room was only about 10' deep, which felt odd, and there was a tiny kitchen off to the side. He explained that NYU had built dorms on the site, but because they were landmarked, and the designation only applied to the first 10', the building had been chopped off at that depth. He opened a steel door in the back, and sure enough, there was a low-ceilinged, fluorescent lit hallway with dozens of doors coming off it, that ran the entire length of the block to the right and the left.One of McLane's sketches

3. How true to period is the set in reality?

It is, and it isn’t. Everything in it is based in the reality of the period, and yet virtually everything has been molded or altered or pushed to fit the mood I was trying to create, which was one of both great wealth and grandeur combined with great restraint. The Sloper family has an almost puritanical distaste for vulgarity, so conveying the wealth without offending their sensibilities is a challenge.

4. What shop did you work with, and how are the set pieces fabricated?

Global Scenic in Bridgeport, CT built the set. It is made out of many different materials. With the exception of the lace we used for the walls, I was not particularly concerned with the type of materials they used, rather that they created the shapes I had drawn and painted it as I had the model, something they did very beautifully.

5. What about working with the LD?

I worked very closely with the lighting designer, David Lander. He and I have collaborated several times before, and he was very active in helping figure out how to light it most effectively. In particular, I wanted an effect of the lace walls dissolving into sky at the end as Catherine ascends the stairs for the final time.

Read the Article Here

BroadwayWorld.com - Derek McLane Discusses 2013 Academy Awards Set Design

Derek McLane Discusses 2013 Academy Awards Set Design
Tuesday, February 19, 2013; 02:02 PM - by Pat Cerasaro

Tony Award-winning scenic designer Derek McLane has discussed the inspiration behind his remarkable set design for the 2013 Academy Awards in an interview with the LA Times.

McLane related that the main inspiration for the half-moon shaped caged lighting sculpture that frames the gigantic stage of the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles came from an object d'art in his own home - a wall installation featuring dozens of antique lamps in cubbyholes backed by iodizing mirrors.

Old meets new, indeed!

McLane states of the wall structure in his own home, "They're all slightly different and they're objects you wouldn't think of as warm or romantic, but in a pattern they create an almost lush backdrop to the room."

He continues, "That kind of tension between an ordinary object and the patterns you can create with them is interesting."

In speaking of executive producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and their influence, McLane says, "[Meron and Zadan] said, 'We don't want you to try to make this look like another Oscar show. Make this look like your own work.' And they singled out some of the more abstract, interesting Broadway sets I'd designed. It really freed me up."

Busby Berkeley movies and the great movie musicals all have played a part in the design, as well. "I'm exploring things I think suit the majesty of the event, the glamour of the event. But some of them are unadorned."

Check out the LA Times article here.

Be sure to stay tuned to BroadwayWorld for an interview with Derek McLane later this week as well as exclusive images of the design!

Also, 2013 Academy Awards executive producer Neil Meron Tweeted a picture of the set earlier this week, as well. Follow him on Twitter here.

View the enticing preview image from Neil Meron's Twitter yesterday below.



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Vanity Fair - A Q&A with the 2013 Oscars’ Set Designer

Making Sure Julia Roberts Doesn’t Slip and Hollywood's Shortest Actors Look Tall: A Q&A with the 2013 Oscars’ Set Designer

by Julie Miller

1:30 PM, FEBRUARY 19 2013

     Derek McLane. BY JOAN MARCUS. 

Tony Award winner Derek McLane has designed the sets of many a Broadway musical—including Grease, Ragtime, andThe Pajama Game—so it makes sense that the Harvard- and Yale-educated theater designer should bring his expertise to this year’s Academy Awards, which will pay homage to music, specifically movie musicals. Already it has been announced that Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Queen Latifah, and Richard Gere will reunite for a special Chicago number. Barbra Streisand will return to the stage for her first performance at the Academy Awards in 36 years. Dreamgirls and Les Misérables are expected to be represented in a music-number capacity. And Adele, as part of a 50th-anniversary tribute to the James Bond film franchise, will perform “Skyfall” live for the first time ever. In preparation for the event, which will take place this Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, McLane has been working on the sets since October—consulting with host Seth MacFarlane, drawing inspiration from 30s- and 40s-era musicals, and secretly tweaking the venue’s seating to quicken up the ceremony’s historically slow pace.

Between last-minute meetings a few days ago, McLane phoned the Hollywood Blog and told us about slip-proofing the Dolby Theatre’s stage, whether Jack Nicholson’s seat has special reclining capabilities, and the top-secret James Bond tribute.

Julie Miller: How does set-designing for the Oscars differ from set- designing for a Broadway show?

Derek McLane: On a Broadway show, we start with a set story or set script. For the Oscars, we are creating our own narrative, a much looser narrative than you would have for a Broadway show. Another difference is that a Broadway audience sits a fixed distance from the stage. At the Oscars, because we have a lot of close-ups, you see the scenery from a distance, so it has to look great from both a distance and up close.

What is the narrative for this year’s show, and how much was it informed by the host, Seth MacFarlane?

Seth has been involved in a lot of the design meetings. He’s really been amazing. One of the main themes of the show is the music of the movies. That encompasses movie scores, songs written for movies, and, of course, Broadway musicals. The design riffs on a couple of those ideas throughout. Some in specific ways but mostly in very abstract ways. One of the things I looked at a lot was Busby Berkeley movies and movie musicals of the 30s and 40s. That seems like the golden age of movie musicals.

What specifically about Berkeley’s movies inspired you?

His movies created these amazing patterns, usually with dancers, but the patterns were usually kaleidoscope-shaped. I thought they were really beautiful. And [producers] Craig [Zadan] and Neil [Meron]were really enamored with those. Those inspire a lot of visuals for the eyes, both the kaleidoscope aspect and the repeated patterns.

COURTESY OF DEREK MCLANE.

A rendering of McLane's set design for this Sunday's Academy Awards.

On that note, are those tiny Oscar statuettes that you put in the Swarovski- crystal curtain? (Blogger’s note: If you look closely at the sketch above, you can spot them.)

They are! But they are not actually tiny, although you would not be able to tell from the sketch. They are actually slightly bigger than the real Oscar. That’s a perfect example of what we were talking about, because in close-up, you can see that they are Oscars, but from a distance, they just form a kind of beautiful pattern. That feels both Busby Berkeley and very contemporary to me.

What’s the most difficult aspect of design, aside from the spatial concerns you mentioned?

It’s an intensely quick process. I really started working on this in earnest in October. It’s a lot of stuff to figure out in a really short period of time. Also, it takes a certain number of people to put on an Oscar show, the various departments that are involved—like the people who create video content to figuring out candle locations to figuring out the entrances of presenters, stars, and various musical acts. It’s an enormously complicated process which involves collaboration with a huge number of people to make it happen.

You mentioned presenters’ entrances. How come it seems like no one ever has any idea how to exit the stage?

[Laughs.] I think it’s because there are so many different exit options. Often, I think it is the people who have won, and they are in such a state of shock from having won that they don’t really know what is happening. That’s why we have people up there to help guide them offstage afterward.

Barbra Streisand is performing this year. She is famously particular about what angles she is filmed from and other performance details . . . Has she given you any feedback about the sets for her number?

We showed her the design for the [number] that she is doing, and she was enormously enthusiastic. I’ve only heard positive things from her and am absolutely looking forward to seeing her onstage.

There has been some secrecy about the James Bond–tribute portion of the show, specifically about whether the actors who have played James Bond will appear together.

Uh huh . . .

I know you can’t discuss that, but can you please discuss the most James Bond–ian tricks of your set design?

I think the design we have for that segment really captures the feeling of those title sequences of those great Bond films from the 60s and 70s. They had some of the most spectacular title sequences and songs associated with them. It’s so much fun to be able to just watch those clips and listen to the songs. They are amazing.

Did you have to get approval for those sets from the James Bond estate?

Yes, they’ve been involved and extremely helpful.

On another note, Hollywood actors are notoriously shorter than they seem in films. Did you consider how to make them seem taller when designing the stage? Do you put as much thought behind designing the podium as presidential-debate coordinators do?

We actually won’t have a podium this year! That’s one thing that we don’t have to worry about. I would love to say that we surround [the short actors] with tiny furniture, but we don’t really have any furniture on set. It’s really just a question of camera angle and shooting them in such a way that is complimentary to them.

I was surprised to find out that you also design the audience seating. What kind of changes did you make in the Dolby Theatre?

We’ve done one little minor adjustment to facilitate the speed of some of the awards. I don’t think it is anything that the audience will be aware of. We were just trying to figure out ways to get winners to the stage more quickly and make the pace of the show as exciting as possible.

Did you insert more aisles or those moving airport walkways? Or is it top secret?

It’s kind of top secret. I will say that [producers] Craig [Zadan] and Neil [Meron] and I did spend a lot of time looking at past shows and looking at places where we thought we might be able to trim 2 seconds here or 20 seconds there so that the pace of the show is as tight as we can make it.

Jack Nicholson always has the best seat in the house. We’d like to imagine that over the years, he’s made some special modifications to his chair. Maybe a cup or flask holder. A special compartment to hold his wrap- around sunglasses. Reclining capabilities and better armrests. Can you confirm this . . . or does he sit in the same type of seat as everyone else?

[Laughs.] As far as I know, he gets the same seat as everyone else . . . the ones that are here all year round.

Disappointing! From home, the stage always appears so slick and shiny. How do you ensure that Julia Roberts and the other actresses in six-inch heels don’t wipe out on their way to the microphone?

Well, we make the surface of the floor shiny because it looks better that way, no question about it. The major thing that I’ve done is avoid putting staircases in the set. So really the only steps are the ones that get the winner onstage, but we won’t have any staircases on set, because I’ve heard from so many people that big, long staircases are the enemies of women in gowns and high heels.

Will you be watching in house on Sunday, and if so, will you be able to relax and enjoy yourself at all?

I’ll probably just be tense and nervous, but I will be sitting in the house. At the moment, I am really looking forward to watching the show, though, and seeing who will win. It’s an amazing crop of movies and talent this year. But I will probably be nervous the entire time.

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NY Daily News - Tony Winning Scenic Designer Derek McLane Sets the Stage for the Oscars Ceremony

Tony winning scenic designer Derek McLane sets the stage for the Oscars ceremony

BY JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ
FEBRUARY 19, 2013 6:21 PM

BY JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
In-demand Broadway set designer Derek McLane, pictured in his midtown studio, has gone Hollywood.
At least until the 85th Academy Awards telecast airs on Feb. 24.
McLane, who won a Tony for the play "33 Variations," is designing the scenery for the Oscarcast, which revolves around music of the movies.
"In terms of visibility, this is by far my biggest moment," he says, adding that Oscarcast producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan wanted a show "that doesn't look like any other Oscar show."
He adds that Meron and Zadan encouraged him to think out-of-the-box -- or inside-the-box if that made for a fabulous effect.
Hence, McLane's glittery proscenium framing the stage. He's
tucked replicas of Oscars -- 1,051 of them -- into it. Talk about a golden arch.

For a full story on McLane's work, plus scoop from the Academy Awards show producers and choreographer Rob Ashford,

Read the full story at NYDailyNews.com.

Broadway.com - Oscars Set Designer Derek McLane Reveals Five Inspirations for Creating Hollywood's Big Night

Oscars Set Designer Derek McLane Reveals Five Inspirations for Creating Hollywood's Big Night

By Marc Snetiker February 20, 2013

Tony-winning scenic designer Derek McLane has a glitzy new gig creating sets for the 2013 Academy Awards, which will be presented at the newly renamed Dolby Theatre on Sunday, February 24. Mega-producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan gave McLane the assignment to design Hollywood’s biggest night after the duo worked with him on Broadway’s How to Succeed in Business Without Reallly Trying. Now McLane is primed to give Hollywood a taste of his Broadway-honed aesthetic when his work takes center stage (quite literally) at the 85th annual ceremony. We asked McLane to share his inspiration for designing the starry telecast.

1. Past Ceremonies: “One of the first things we did was sit down and watch all the Oscar shows from the last 12 years. We looked at what was successful, and I learned things about scale and size and colors that worked well. The floor plan—the actual layout of the Oscars—has a lot to do with how to make the show flow well. That was really a preamble to actually getting started on the design.”

2. McLane's Broadway History: “Neil and Craig wanted this to look like my work, and they cited a couple of shows I had designed on Broadway—33 Variations, I Am My Own Wife and How to Succeed. They wanted me to riff on those and make them appropriate to the Oscars, but they were very clear: We don’t want this to be a Broadway musical. It is a stage show and needs to work as a stage show, not only for television but for the people in the room. The more we can make this a great show for them, that energy will translate onto television.”

3. Oscar Statues: “I’ve had a fascination with repeating objects and the patterns they make, and in a way I think the proscenium [with repeating Oscar statues, pictured above] evokes the history of all the great Oscar winners who have gone up on stage in the last 85 years. They’re a little larger than real Oscars, but they’re small enough to become a pattern and a beautiful backdrop without necessarily over-focusing on the individual objects.”

4. Movie Musicals: “One of the themes of this year’s show is music in the movies, and that encompasses movie musicals, scores and songs created just for the movies. That was a motif I started to riff on, and elements of that appear on the show in very abstract ways. There were a few [design elements] more specific to music than to movies that I think people will fully understand. Most of the design is more abstract than specific.”

5. Busby Berkeley: “The proscenium arch/show curtain is inspired by [director/choreographer] Busby Berkeley and speaks to the golden era of musicals in the ‘30s and ‘40s, what I consider great, beautiful, giant soundstages where movie musicals are created. Busby Berkeley is an inspiration for a lot of imagery in the design. I don’t know if the audience will consciously make that association, but I think they’ll feel it.”

Read the Article Here

BBC News - Oscar Sets the Stage for Big Night

Oscar sets the stage for big night

By Emma Saunders

Entertainment reporter, BBC News22 February 2013

Award-winning set designer Derek McLane tells BBC News about the challenge of creating the Oscars stage set.

The name Derek McLane may not be familiar to many outside Broadway but this award-winning set designer is about to showcase the biggest project of his career in Hollywood on Sunday.

Having worked with Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron on the Broadway show How to Succeed in Business starring Daniel Radcliffe in 2011 - he got the call from the duo offering him the Oscars job.

"It's quite humbling and terrifying at times as well as completely exciting. It's a show with such an enormous tradition... that I want to honour," he says.

McLane usually watches the Oscars ceremony with friends at home where they do a ballot to predict the winners.

"I'm aware people enjoy critiquing the Oscars, that's a bit of sport for the audiences… I know that I'm on the chopping block just like everyone else involved in the show. It's an exciting place to be."

McLane's previous work includes Follies, Anything Goes and Variations 33, which won him a prestigious Tony award in 2009.

But it's a whole different ball game designing a theatre set than it is creating the Academy Awards stage.

"It's different in a number of ways - one difference is  we're not telling a narrative story in the way that you would be for a play, musical or an opera. That's what I'm most familiar with.

"And we just get one shot at it, there's only one performance. With a play, you do sometimes hundreds, even thousands (of performances). You get more chances to adjust. We don't get that luxury here," he adds.

"That's part of the thrill the audience feels - it is live and spontaneous.

McLane studied previous Oscar sets before beginning work on his own design.

"I actually spent some time with Neil and Craig looking at what we thought was successful in previous Oscars shows, not with an eye to copying them but try to learn as much as we could about how they work."

So can we expect anything radical this year?

"One of the mandates Neil and Craig gave me is that they wanted this to look completely different to any other Oscar show, they did not want this to look like what people are familiar with," he says.

"They wanted me to think boldly, they referenced some of the more adventurous theatre designs that I had done and said they would love it if I riffed on some of those design ideas and found a way to make them relevant to an Oscars performance."

33 Variations, a play inspired by Beethoven's work which starred Jane Fonda on Broadway in 2009, is one of the plays the Oscar producers cited: "Obviously it couldn't look like 33 Variations but the kind of design style of that... you will see in a very subtle way."

Another inspiration for McLane is closer to home.

"In my New York apartment, I have an architectural installation which is a wall of lamps. I've got about 35 - 40 small industrial lamps from sometime during the last century, they all have articulated arms like task lamps... and they're all aiming in the same direction.          

"They're all on dimmer switches... and then I put antique mirrors behind them so they are the major light source for the room. The objects themselves are plain and they're made out of rusty metal but together, what they do as a pattern, creates a warmth and romance."

His most recent stage production was Broadway's The Heiress, starring Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain.McLane says he won't be using industrial lamps as part of his Oscar set "but there are a number of pieces that riff on this idea in ways, some more related to the movies".

"She is amazing in Zero Dark Thirty and I'm so excited that I'll get to see her at the Oscars. What she does in The Heiress is so completely and utterly different than what she does in Zero Dark Thirty, it makes you really admire her range as an actress."

Now he has entered the movie world, is film design now on the agenda?

"Yes, that is absolutely something that I would like to do, especially a high concept film or a period film," he says.

"From a design point of view, I think Life of Pi is extraordinary, as is Lincoln and Anna Karenina - what they did with Lincoln was gorgeous, capturing the clutter and smoky claustrophobia in the White House. It was a visual surprise.

"It's an unusually strong crop of films this year from the Oscars."

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Recessionista - Behind the Scenes for Oscars 2013: Swarovski Crystals on Stage

Behind the Scenes for Oscars 2013: Swarovski Crystals on Stage

Published by Mary Hall on February 22, 2013

Take a tour behind the scenes at the upcoming stage and set design for the Oscars. This year, Tony Award-winning Production Designer Derek McLane addes a fresh perspective to the set of the Dolby Theater, incorporating over 100,000 Swarovski crystals into the Oscar’s stage design and theater decor.  Talk about old time Hollywood glamour!  We love the fantasy of the Oscars here at The Recessionista.

Watch this video to see how designer McLane incorporated over 1,500 pounds of Swarovski crystal into the stage and auditorium design. It took over one month to realize his vision of a spectacular 80 feet wide and 40 feet high crystal curtain among other dazzling elements. This set delivers real Hollywood glamour. The full design concept and visuals of the Oscars set will remain a closely guarded secret until the live telecast on Sunday, February 24 th, when the Oscars will be broadcast across the globe on ABC at 7 pm EST.

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LA Times - Oscar Set Designer Derek McLane Draws On His Theatrical Expertise

OSCARS 2013

Oscar set designer Derek McLane draws on his theatrical expertise

A Tony-winning set designer, Derek McLane's plans for the Oscars include visuals that will engage both the theater audience and the TV public.

By Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times

February 16, 2013

When it came to designing this year's Oscar sets, Derek McLane didn't have to look far for inspiration.

McLane, a Tony Award-winning set designer who has crafted the scenery for such Broadway shows as "33 Variations," "I Am My Own Wife," "The Heiress" and the upcoming "Breakfast at Tiffany's," stole an idea from his own New York apartment — an installation of 35 industrial lamps on a wall, each in its own cubbyhole, backed by an antique mirror.

"They're all slightly different and they're objects you wouldn't think of as warm or romantic, but in a pattern they create an almost lush backdrop to the room," said McLane in an interview on the day his sets were being loaded into the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center in preparation for the 85th Academy Awards telecast next Sunday. "That kind of tension between an ordinary object and the patterns you can create with them is interesting."

Oscar producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who worked with McLane on their Broadway revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," plan to pay tribute to movie musicals in this year's telecast, which will showcase "Les Misérables," "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls," and include performances by Barbra Streisand and Adele.

In keeping with the musical theme — and his own lamp muses — McLane said he looked to the style of repeating geometric patterns common to 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals. In Berkeley's case, those patterns were often made up of dancers' gyrating bodies. In McLane's, they are composed of objects connected in some fashion to movies, including Oscar statuettes.

"I'm exploring things I think suit the majesty of the event, the glamour of the event," McLane said. "But some of them are unadorned."

The designer also built multiple movable screens into the sets to incorporate film imagery, and relied on materials such as aluminum and light bulbs to create looks for the show's 12 acts.

"[Meron and Zadan] said, 'We don't want you to try to make this look like another Oscar show,'" he said. "'Make this look like your own work.' And they singled out some of the more abstract, interesting Broadway sets I'd designed. It really freed me up."

Coming from live theater and set designing his first Academy Awards, McLane said he was conscious of the show's twin aims — engaging the 3,400 people in the theater and entertaining the wider public watching at home.

In terms of set design, that meant thinking of visuals that would be beautiful both in camera close-ups and from the last row of the theater.

"We really want the show to play well in the house," McLane said. "This is a TV show watched by millions of people, but it's also really important that it's a good show for the people in the theater. It's their night. The better job we do for the people in the room, the more I think the people at home will feel it."

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