How projection designers create their increasingly prominent art

Call it the revenge of the A/V club. As theatre becomes more and more expensive, freestanding sets are increasingly giving way to projections, and projection designers are becoming increasingly indispensable artists. From Rock of Ages to Wicked, their work is a constant Broadway presence, and it’s equally prominent in theatres throughout the world.

Theatrical projections—sometimes still photos, sometimes filmed footage—have helped expand the possibility of what can be depicted on stage while reducing the cost. A glimpse at the two Broadway productions of Sunday in the Park With George is instructive: Tony Straiges took components of the Georges Seurat painting at the musical’s center and converted them into an array of painted simulacra for the 1984 premiere, while Timothy Bird and the Knifedge Creative Network used elaborate computer animation to create similar pictures and more in 2008.

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2011 Tony Nominee Derek McLane’s approach to set design

What you notice first in Derek McLane’s studio are not the scale models of his theatrical sets—he has designed almost two dozen Broadway shows since 1994—but an entire wall covered floor to ceiling with books.

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

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How Mackenzie Crook Mastered His Tony-Nominated Role

When award season comes around, playing giants among men (and women) is often good for one’s mantelpiece. Hamlet, Medea, Max Bialystock, Mama Rose, Miss Jean Brodie, Roy Cohn: These are the sorts of roles that traditionally win Tonys.

But playing a man among giants has also paid off, at least in the supporting categories. The three Billy Eliot kids won the Tony Award, but so did Gregory Jbara, for playing their dad; same with Boyd Gaines alongside Patti LuPone’s formidable Rose in Gypsy. An especially pronounced case came last year, when Eddie Redmayne won for his supporting turn opposite Alfred Molina’s Mark Rothko in Red.

Now another sallow Englishman has been nominated for his work alongside another unstoppable force.

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Welcome to Building Character, TDF Stages’ ongoing series about actors and how they create their roles

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Just this morning, Patina Miller was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her starring role in Sister Act, the Broadway musical adaptation of the 1992 film about Deloris Von Cartier, an aspiring nightclub singer who goes into hiding in a convent after she sees her mob-boss boyfriend murder an informant. Hijinks and high notes ensue when Deloris brings her showbiz savvy to the church’s struggling choir.

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Frances Sternhagen remembers when Richard Burton forgot his lines, what Jessica Tandy thought of Driving Miss Daisy, and why Cherry Jones tumbled down a staircase.

Late last month, she told those stories at TDF’s Drama Dialogues, a program that hosts live discussions with renowned theatre artists. As she was interviewed by Stephen DiMenna, a theatre director and TDF teaching artist, Sternhagen reflected on a career that includes two Tony awards, twenty-two Broadway shows, and memorable turns on TV series like Sex and The City and Cheers.

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