Groundbreaking Broadway Designer On Making Tony History and Going into Labor in the Middle of Tech | Playbill

News Groundbreaking Broadway Designer On Making Tony History and Going into Labor in the Middle of Tech As part of Playbill.com's Women in Theatre Week, we asked acclaimed scenic designer Heidi Ettinger to share some of the designs that have been especially meaningful in her long and varied career.

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Heidi Ettinger

Big River

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Co-produced and designed my first Broadway musical and received the first Tony to be awarded to woman solo set designer. The show got the Tony for Best Musical that year. Brilliant score and great direction by Des McAnuff. I gave birth to my first son in the middle of technical rehearsals. Not sure how I lived to tell the tale...

Secret Garden

 

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Produced as well as designed this original musical with the first-ever female creative team. Multi-Tony awarded show directed by Susan Schulman, included one for best scenic design. Oh, and [I] had another child during the process!

Triumph of Love

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A wonderfully ambitious and delightful show based on the 17th-century Marivaux novel with a great collaborative team lead by Michael Mayer and produced by Margo Lion.

Hunchback of Notre Dame

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The Berlin production directed by James Lapine; we got to try some really innovative theatrical experiments which the German audiences embraced for its six-year run. The animated stage of elevators was designed to move around the actors.

King Lear

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My favorite thing to design is Shakespeare; this production at the Public directed by James Lapine was a revelation. Pure pleasure to get to hear the text beautifully acted over and over again; by the end of the run, I had memorized most of the play.

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