Designer John Lee Beatty Talks THE NEIL SIMON PLAYS With the Daily News

John Lee Beatty is an award winning scenic designer. who has designed sets for more than seventy Broadway productions since 1973 including The Apple Tree, Losing Louie, Heartbreak House, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Rabbit Hole, The Color Purple, The Odd Couple, Doubt, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Twentieth century, Wonderful Town, Dinner at Eight, Morning's at Seven, Proof, Footloose, Ivanov, The Little Foxes, Once Upon a Mattress, Chicago, A Delicate Balance, The Heiress, Redwood Curtain, A Small Family Business, The Most Happy Fella, Ain't Misbehavin', The Octette Bridge Club, Duet for One, Fifth of July, Talley's Folly, The Innocents, and Knock Knock. Beatty won Tony Awards for his designs on Twentieth century and Talley's Folly and received eleven other nominations for his work. Beatty also has won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design four times and received ten other Drama Desk nominations.

The decorated set designer recently spoke with Daily News theater critic Joe Dziemianowicz about his career on stage.  In an except from the article, Dziemianowicz writes:

John Lee Beatty has made an illustrious career out of designing sets that look so real you could see yourself moving in after the show. Have the mail forwarded, call the man with van and you're there.

So it goes for the cozy, if cramped Depression-era duplex in Brooklyn that's home to the noisy Jerome family in "Brighton Beach Memoirs."

The revival of Neil Simon's 1983 autobiographical comedy stars "Roseanne" alum Laurie Metcalf as matriarch Kate Jerome. It's now in previews for an Oct. 25 opening, and will run in repertory with the companion play "Broadway Bound" next month.

Standing in the set's living room, Beatty sums up the appearance that director David Cromer wanted: "Nothing too yummy." That makes sense. The period is late 1930s. Money is tight. Everyone is scraping by, making the most of the little they've got. Sounds a lot like 2009.

"The director wanted it to be real," Beatty continues, "not something that looked like a delicious Saturday Evening Post cover. He wanted it filled with what real people would live with."

The Tony-winning set designer began his research in April, when he visited Brighton Beach, eyes peeled for inspiration, camera in hand. He hit paydirt when he happened upon a home being remodeled. "There was a hole where the porch would have been," says Beatty. "I had a great view to the past. I got lucky."

To read more in the Daily News, click here:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2009/10/08/2009-10-08_brighton_beach_memoirs_backstage_with_designer_who_recreated_brooklyn_on_brodawa.html#ixzz0TNcaHHMfBrighton 

Beach Memoirs and Broadway Bound were two of the longest running Broadway plays of the 1980s. The works ushered in a new era of appreciation for Neil Simon, with praise for the playwright's hilarious and poignant account of his adolescence, early career and family life in New York in the 1930s and 1940s.

Brighton Beach Memoirs originally opened on March 27, 1983 at the Alvin Theatre and played for 1,299 performances. (During the run of Brighton Beach Memoirs, the Alvin Theatre was renamed The Neil Simon Theatre).

Brighton Beach Memoirs centers on young Jewish teen Eugene Morris Jerome and his extended family living in a crowded home in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn in 1937: his overworked father, Jack; overbearing mother, Kate; his older brother Stanley; Kate's widowed sister Blanche and her daughters, Nora and Laurie. As Eugene spends his time daydreaming about a baseball career, he must also cope with his family's troubles, his awkward discovery of the opposite sex and his developing identity as a writer.

Scenic design is by John Lee Beatty, costume design is by Jane Greenwood, lighting design is by Brian MacDevitt and sound design is by Josh Schmidt and Fitz Patton. Hair and wig design is by Tom Watson.

THE Neil Simon PLAYS are produced by Ira Pittelman, Max Cooper, Jeffrey Sine, Scott Delman, Ruth Hendel, Roy Furman, Ben Sprecher/Wendy Federman, Scott Landis and Emanuel Azenberg.

THE Neil Simon PLAYS will be performed in repertory on a varied schedule. Tickets are available at www.TicketMaster.com or 212-307-4100.