Designing

Nina Ruscio Designs

Our conversation with Nina Ruscio, the production designer of The Pitt, continues this week with further details of how unprecedented her design for HBO’s Emmy-winning Best Drama really is. Nina compares her work on this show with other large projects she’s designed; reveals the incredible amount of interior and exterior detail she puts into her designs, and how shooting The Pitt is very much like filming a play that’s happening live; gives props to fellow Cal alum Cathy Sandrich Gelfond on her Emmy win for casting The Pitt; shares the pleasure of working with star and executive producer Noah Wyle; and revels at how highly regarded The Pitt is by the medical community they’re depicting. (Length 15:14)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 15:14 — 17.5MB)

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By austin, ago

Designing The Pitt

Nina Ruscio, the Emmy-nominated (for The Flight Attendant) production designer of The Pitt on HBO, discusses how her design helped create this enormous – and enormously popular – show. Nina reveals how producer John Wells (The West Wing; E.R.) tasked her with creating a ground plan before the writers even started writing episodes; the joy of living a freelance, project-based lifestyle; how her background as an English major allows her designs to express literature visually; how memories from the musical she designed in college remain in her sedimentary layer; and the remarkable privilege of creating the world in which stories are invented. PART ONE OF A TWO-PART CONVERSATION. (Length 18:11) (Photo of Nina on her set for The Pitt by cinematographer Johanna Coelho.)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 18:11 — 20.9MB)

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By austin, ago

Let’s Build Forts!

Julie Ritchey, the founding artistic director of Chicago’s Filament Theatre, and scenic and installation designer Eleanor Kahn are two members of the team that created Forts!, the play that turns the audience loose in a controlled environment to create their own event. Julie and Eleanor discuss the creation of Forts! and how it changes despite somehow staying the same; how they’re exploring the intersection of play (the noun) and play (the verb); the challenge of creating a Forts! signature cocktail; the important question of why only toddlers get to wear fun fashions; and why Forts! is a play, not a show, and definitely not an experience. Welcome to podcasting on the edge! (Length 17:23)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 17:23 — 20.0MB)

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By austin, ago

Lighting The Comedy

Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, and Joseph Jefferson award-winning designer Christopher Akerlind has designed the lights for the current Goodman Theatre production of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, a powerful comedy directed by Kate Whoriskey and featuring astonishing performances from a terrific ensemble (including friend of the pod Kevin Kenerly). Chris discusses how his bold (and funny!) lighting design for Clyde’s goes against his general philosophy of staying out of the way; how he always tries to stay open to the possibility of improvisation in your design; the importance of finding restrictions; how he’s open to the timing and rhythms of actors, language, and ultimately, audiences; how he embraces the opportunity to create visual humor; the secret to developing design muscles; and how Shakespeare is the opposite of restricting. (Length 18:29) (PICTURED ABOVE: Reza Salazar and Nedra Snipes in the Goodman Theatre production of Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, directed by Kate Whoriskey. Photo by Liz Lauren.)

Podcast: Download (Duration: 18:29 — 21.2MB)

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By austin, ago