#84 - Derek McLane & Eila Mell: Designing Broadway

Dear Multi-hyphenate

Tony and Emmy Winning Production Designer Derek McLane and Eila Mell have come together to create the new hit book Designing Broadway, available wherever books are sold! This episode is incredible for all artists – especially theatre designers who are beginning to explore their multi-hyphenate identities.

Together with other leading set design and theatre talents, McLane invites us into the immersive and exhilarating experience of building the striking visual worlds that have brought so many of our favorite stories to life. Discover how designers generate innovative ideas, research period and place, solve staging challenges, and collaborate with directors, projectionists, costume designers, and other artists to capture the essence of a show in powerful scenic design.

With co-writer Eila Mell, McLane and contributors discuss Moulin Rouge!, Hamilton, Hadestown, Beautiful, and many more of the most iconic productions of our generation. Among the Broadway luminaries who contribute are John Lee Beatty, Danny Burstein, Cameron Crowe, Ethan Hawke, Moisés Kaufman, Carole King, Kenny Leon, Santo Loquasto, Kathleen Marshall, Lynn Nottage, David Rabe, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Wallace Shawn, John Leguizamo, and Robin Wagner.

Filled with personal sketches and photographs from the artists’ archives, this stunningly designed book is truly a behind-the-scenes journey that theatre fans will love.

Derek McLane is an Emmy and Tony Award winning production designer for Broadway and television, who’s nearly 350 designs include: Broadway credits such as MJ, The Michael Jackson Musical, Moulin Rouge! (Tony Award), A Soldier’s Play (Tony Nomination), American Son, Parisian Woman, The Price, Beautiful, Fully Committed, Noises Off, Gigi, 33 Variations (with Jane Fonda) (Tony Award), China Doll (with Al Pacino), How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying (with Daniel

Radcliffe), Follies, Anything Goes, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (with Robin Williams), Ragtime, The Pajama Game, I Am My Own Wife. Off-Broadway: Buried Child, Jerry Springer The Opera, Merrily We Roll Along, The Spoils, If I Forget, Love, Love, Love; The Night of the Iguana, Sweet Charity, Buried Child, Into the Woods, Ruined, The Last Five Years, Television 6 years of Academy Awards, NBC Musicals: The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, The Wiz & Hairspray. Derek is the Chairman of the Board of The New Group Theatre. His many awards include: 2 Tony Awards, 2 Emmy’s, 2 Obie’s, 2 Drama Desks, 3 Lucille Lortel Awards, and 3 Art Directors Guild Awards. @derekmclane

Eila Mell is the author of Designing Broadway as well as the official guide to the hit television series Project Runway, titled Project Runway: The Show That Changed Fashion. Among her other books are New York Fashion Week and, with Ty Hunter, Makeover from Within: Lessons in Hardship, Acceptance, and Self-Discovery. Mell has been featured in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Glamour, and CBS’s The Insider, as well as in the documentary Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf’s. She is the co-host of the podcast Jiffy Pop Culture with comedian Frank Liotti. @eilamell

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