The spotlight is on sets in 'Designing Broadway'
Elia Mell of Long Island and Derek McLane celebrate at the book launch for “Designing Broadway.” Credit: Michaelah Reynolds
A Broadway set is at once often the most looked at and overlooked aspect of a production. Photographs typically show actors with the set as a blur in the background.
Broadway sets, however, take center stage in Long Island resident Eila Mell’s and set designer Derek McLane’s eye-popping and eye-opening “Designing Broadway” (Running Press, $45). Mell, whose love of theater was nurtured during summers at Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts in Wheatley Heights, partnered with McLane, who designed the sets for Broadway's "Moulin Rouge!," "MJ" and "Almost Famous" as well as those for the live productions of "The Sound of Music," "Peter Pan" and "The Wiz" at Grumman Studios in Bethpage. The result is an appreciation and analysis of an aspect of theater that doesn’t typically garner applause, although it sometimes leads to awards.
Mell and McLane (who won two Tonys and two Emmys) talked with Newsday about the role of set design and designers on Broadway.
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