The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
thevolleyballer
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/29/04
#0The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 3:27am
What would you all say is the single most awesome, innovative, unique, brilliant, workable, engaging, definitive set piece you've ever seen in a Broadway show? I ask for a single piece, so don't go saying, "OMG I love the scene in ____ with all the ___s and ___s."
I ask because set design has always been an interest of mine, and I've never thought to ask this before. 
I would either say the little TV platform in Hairspray (it's just so dang cool to me) or the elevator in Thoroughly Modern Millie. To have captions come up was just a brilliant idea, in my opinion. :)
neddyfrank2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#2re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 3:31am
dont know if it counts but i thought it was cool when the girl swam in the pool in Aida
#3re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 3:38am
As a Prop Girl, I tend to lean more towards the cool props that are used but as far as set pieces... I would have to go with
-Phantom of the Opera - the gargoile where no one expects him to appear! (Hope I didn't spoil it for the 3 people who have yet to see the show).
I like when things like that happen though. Not like in Cats when they are right in your face, but when they are close enough but still far enough away that you are not ready to swing at the actors.
#4re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 4:10amI love the set piece used in DRS during Great Big Stuff its got a nice design its differnt, vercetile and awsome in so many ways plus gives freddys line "omg the whole thing turns"
<------ Me and my friends with patti Lupone at my friends afterparty for her concert with audra mcdonald during the summer of 2007.
"I am sorry but it is an unjust world and virtue is only triumphant in theatricle performances" The Mikado
"I am sorry but it is an unjust world and virtue is only triumphant in theatricle performances" The Mikado
#5re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 4:32amThe entire one-piece rotation set in RABBIT HOLE.
"Winning a Tony this year is like winning Best Attendance in third grade: no one will care but the winner and their mom."
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
-Kad
"I have also met him in person, and I find him to be quite funny actually. Arrogant and often misinformed, but still funny."
-bjh2114 (on Michael Riedel)
#6re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 5:07amI loved Lestat's house and the church, in LESTAT. I don't know if it was any different in NYC, but the San Francisco designs were great.
*MuSiCaLs_FaN*
Understudy Joined: 7/27/05
#7re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 6:19amThe house in 'Mary Poppins' it's amazing how it all opens outand how the attic comes away and is swung down so you can see the children's bderoom and the same with the kitchen, how the house appears to move 'up' as if you are going down into the basement! very clever!
ashley0139
Broadway Legend Joined: 1/3/05
#8re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 7:47amThis is going to sound really stupid, because it's not actually that exciting, but I LOVED the attic ceiling/wall they used in Little Women. I thought it looked amazingly perfect. And it actually took me a while to figure out that it actually probably wasn't slanted backward because that would take up slightly too much room.
"This table, he is over one hundred years old. If I could, I would take an old gramophone needle and run it along the surface of the wood. To hear the music of the voices. All that was said." - Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife
jakebloke
Broadway Star Joined: 5/29/03
#9re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 7:54amThe Mansion in Sunset Blvd (Broadway....NOT the tour with Petula Clark)
#10re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 7:58amI loved the larger than life set for "Gem of the ocean" I thought it was awesome.
...What happened next, was stranger still, a woman breathless and afraid, appeared out of the night, completely dressed in white. She had a secret she would tell, of one who had mistreated her. Her face and frightened gaze, my mind cannot erase...But then she ran from view. She looked so much like you...
#11re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:04amThe cube used in the original staging of SWEENEY TODD was revolutionary. (Thanks, Eugene Lee. You're a genius.)
Itty Bitty Geisha?
Toyland?
Gypsy Pasadoble?
Just a few popular favorites...
#12re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:06amNINE revival set.
" ...the happiness in the tune convinces me that I'm not afraid."
#13re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:08amas simple as it is, the cloth in AIDA that starts out as the river bank, then turns into a market tent, then into radames's tent, just by falling in a certain way.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27199361@N08/ Phantom at the Royal Empire Theatre
#14re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:27am
The mentions of AIDA are all on my list as well. Gorgeous and inventive.
LOVED the helicopter in MISS SAIGON.
LES MIZ and it's turtable is pretty awesome as well.
DRS has a great set, too.
PHANTOMs chandelier and drapes are VERY impressive 
Both productions of INTO THE WOODS were awe-inspiring.
"TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD"- LES MISERABLES---
"THERE'S A SPECIAL KIND OF PEOPLE KNOWN AS SHOW PEOPLE... WE'RE BORN EVERY NIGHT AT HALF HOUR CALL!"--- CURTAINS
Updated On: 6/21/06 at 08:27 AM
#15re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:46amDespite all the lavish productions I've seen on Broadway, the first things that came to mind were shows at the Papermill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ. In particular, several years ago their production of 'My Fair Lady' was spectacular. When Henry and Liza left for the ball, the entire library set split and reversed, to reveal the ballroom.
"It does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are 20 gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg."
-- Thomas Jefferson
#16re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 8:55amI second the mansion from Sunset Boulevard. It was actually a "shell" that fit over the other sets. Also, I loved when they lifted it and created two scenes at once like a split screen. Absolutely thrilling. Nothing has rivaled the sight of that.
"The sexual energy between the mother and son really concerns me!"-random woman behind me at Next to Normal
"I want to meet him after and bang him!"-random woman who exposed her breasts at Rock of Ages, referring to James Carpinello
#17re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:03am
The huge prison set from the Brian Stokes Mitchell production of Man of La Mancha was awe-inspiring.
I also loved the outdoors set for Fiddler on the Roof. At times, I almost forgot I was in a theatre.
My avatar = A screencap from Avatar, arguably the greatest animated show of all
#18re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:09am
More lighting effect, but the spidersweb in the orignal production of "Kiss of the spiderwoman".
That was breath taking.
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
#19re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:10amThe "backstage/stadium" set in Jersey Boys, in "Dawn", where it feels as if you have gone to the back to the stage...Yes....that was amazing.
"Are you sorry for civilization? I am sorry for it too." ~Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck
#20re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:16amThe TV screens in Bring Back Birdie
icantbelive
Featured Actor Joined: 5/5/06
#21re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:33am
Chitty Car
Sweet Charity Elevator
#22re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:35amThe set for "An Inspector Calls" was the most single brilliant bit of stage design I have witnessed in 28 years of theatre-going.
"When you're a gay man, you have to feel good about yourself when a urologist says, "Yeah. I pick you". - Happy Endings
theevilgumby
Understudy Joined: 9/27/05
#23re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 9:41am
the revolving set in Piazza
the chandelier and gargoglye in phantom
mejusthavingfun
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/12/06
#24re: The Single Most Awesome Set Piece
Posted: 6/21/06 at 10:02amI really think that palm tree drop in Aida was just brilliant. So simple, but so symbolic. Bob Crowley’s work is just so inventive and inspiring. The opening scenes are Tarzan are just incredible. I think the set for Tarzan is a hideous mess thereafter, that green gave me a headache. Mary Poppins set is gorgeous. For really AMAZING sets head for the opera. I saw the Ring cycle once and it was just gorgeous. So much detail and beauty.
