David Rockwell is an award-winning architect and one of New York City’s foremost set designers. Over 30 years ago he founded Rockwell Group, a cross-disciplinary architecture and design firm. The author of “What If…?: The Architecture and Design of David Rockwell,” he was recently nominated for Tony Awards in both the play and musical categories for “You Can’t Take It With You” and “On the Twentieth Century,” bringing his total nominations to five.
How did you fit an entire train onstage in “On the Twentieth Century”?Part of what is so interesting about the piece is the train is a character in the show. We began by deeply researching into the period—an incredible period in design. There was a combination of extreme opulence and speed, an unusual combination. In conversations with Scott [Ellis], the director, we wanted that sense of movement. If you look at the [show’s] poster art, they all have that forced perspective, that streamlined, aerodynamic vocabulary…. We wanted to see that perspective from the outside, and as the train rotated around we’d be taken into the interior. That became the main logistical challenge of the show. It’s 33 feet
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