David Rockwell on his legendary career on Broadway and beyond
The Playbill Podcast: A Show on BroadwayShow Notes
In this episode, we focus not on a particular show but on a remarkable talent who has helped change the landscape of the theatrical world, literally and figuratively: the renowned architect and Tony Award-winning set designer David Rockwell.
It is staggering to unpack all the sets he has designed in the last multiple decades, such as the Rocky Horror revival in 2000, Hairspray, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Normal Heart, Kinky Boots, Side Show, On the Twentieth Century, She Loves Me, Falsettos, Kiss Me Kate, the Chess Revival, and he just earned a Tony nomination for his scenic design for the recently-opened play Fallen Angels. It’s his first nomination since he won for Best Scenic Design of a Musical in 2016 for She Loves Me.
But we did first characterize him as an architect, and that is not only how his working life began, but continues to shine within, as he and his firm have had their hands in a remarkable amount of legendary projects in hospitality, like Nobu, The Corner Store, Din Tai Fung, the W Hotel, The Civilian Hotel, and more.
Host Alex Birsh talks with David about some of those career highlights, how he got into this line of work, and what gets his creativity going when he’s faced with a new project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The Playbill Podcast: A Show on Broadway
"Was there ever a Cat(s) so clever?" That is what people are saying about Cats: The Jellicle Ball, the outstanding revival based on the award-winning and long-running musical Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber, itself based on TS Elliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
If you’ve ever moved to a new town, you know how much of a pain it is. For the Emerson family in the 1980’s, they feel that in a major way as they move to Santa Carla, California. Their biggest obstacles, it turns out? The vampires who reside there.
Throughout his life, the legendary and groundbreaking playwright August Wilson wrote ten plays chronicling the Black experience, decade by decade, throughout the twentieth century; what has been referred to as The Pittsburgh Cycle. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone takes us to the earliest chapter, 1911, just a few decades removed from the end of slavery, in the middle of the Great Migration, when hundreds of thousands of Black Americans were making their way north.
How does a simple Chess rivalry become more than just one person against another? How about...when both players are involved in a love triangle? And the two players are American and Russian, with their nations locked in a Cold War? This is the backdrop of the musical CHESS, the epic tale by Sir Tim Rice and two members of ABBA, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Have you ever wished to find yourself IN a musical? That is the fate of boyfriend and girlfriend Josh and Melissa, who get trapped in the town of Schmigadoon, influenced by the Golden Age of musical theatre (and named after the Broadway classic Brigadoon). First performed at The Kennedy Center in 2025, the stage rendition of the streaming series of the same name (on AppleTV+) has just been nominated for a staggering 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical.