Dane Laffrey

0:00The work that I'm the proudest of had an immensely simple, scaled-back muscularity about it.

0:10from the ted audio collective this is design matters with debbie millman

0:17on design matters debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do how they got to be who they are and what they're thinking about and working on on this episode set designer dane laffrey talks about his career and his design for the musical maybe happy ending every minute 17 seconds the set is moving maybe happy ending is a musical about two different but lifelike robots who fall in love the show premiered in south korea in 2016 and in late 2024 it opened on broadway in new york city where it has been nominated for 10 tony awards including Best Scenic Design of a Musical by Dane Laffrey.

1:03The innovative set fluidly morphs around the two robots as they embark on a journey in Seoul set in the near future. The set design is anything but set. It is a tour de force and one of the most extraordinary stages I've ever witnessed. Dane Laffrey has been designing sets on Broadway and around the world for two decades and his work includes the sets for Parade, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Spring Awakening, and so much more. Dane Laffrey, welcome to Design Matters. Thanks so much, Debbie. I'm thrilled to be here. Dane, I read that since you were a kid, you've had a strange affinity for World War II movies from the 1960s.

1:52Wondering why that particular genre? That's an extraordinary question. You know, I think there is something I found immensely transporting about those films. They're not, with some exceptions, they're not great cinema. I admit to having slightly peculiar taste in some areas like this. But yeah, there's something about those films that I think as I've come back to them later in life, which I'm semi-embarrassed to admit I do. you know there's an amazing like artifice around it you know a lot of those films were like you know shot on the back lot and it's clear at the end of a film that was you know like about the battle of the bulge that they're definitely shooting in southern california for some tank battle you know that it's sort of like there's something interesting about that the artifice and nostalgia and how those things relate to each other but mostly it's just because i you know you know i don't know there's something about those movies that i've always liked You were born in Michigan, but have stated that you grew up around the Midwest.

3:01Where in the Midwest and why so elusive? Well, my father, he's still alive, but when he worked, he worked. He was a sort of university administrator, had like a kind of weird professional wanderlust, I guess. And so he never wanted to or did stay in a job for more than a few years. And so as a result, the family was kind of moved around and it tended to be the Midwest. Uh, so as you say, I was born in Michigan and there was a stint in Washington, D.C., which is not the Midwest. And then there was Wisconsin. And then there was also a stint in Western Canada and Edmonton, which is where I think I saw like my first theatrical experience with that place or like seeing theater in a way that I really struck me.

3:43And then there was Indiana for a while. And then I ended up going to boarding school back in Michigan, which was, you know, Indiana didn't work out so well for me. So I was saved a little bit. Now, you've described yourself as a bad student. Really? I was. I was pretty bad. I think there was an inflection point sort of in the middle of high school. I was like, became very involved in the sort of local community theater. and my recollection is that that was where my attention was going and I think I just was like well this is what I should be doing and the other stuff didn't feel so important but yeah there was a moment where I like I could have had a really different path I think if I hadn't been taken out of this kind of like middling public school in a small town in Indiana and sent to this really extraordinary arts boarding school where suddenly I only got A's there and I was doing academic classes and I was doing things that were, you know, that I think, so I was being properly challenged, I think is one thing, right?

4:47But also I think I felt like, oh, I understand what I'm doing here. And I'm surrounded by people who seem to have the same sense of purpose that I have, which is not the sort of like standard sense of purpose of a 15 or 16 year old, I suppose. Once you became interested in the theater, were you first considering acting or were you always drawn to design? No, well, I think, you know, most theater kids, which I would consider myself, start with acting because that's the thing you can do. I mean, it's, you know, and I think that began for me in, like, junior high school. And I think at that time, I thought, well, that's quite good.

5:26Maybe that'll be good for me. And then I think in high school, I sort of lost interest in it. And certainly then when I like, made the, you know, momentous leap to the community theater that, you know, I think I don't think I was getting the roles, you know, I think I thought, no, I suppose I did do a little acting there. And I think maybe that was also exciting. But there, I think I wanted to be there so much, and I wanted to be in the building. And it felt energizing and interesting. And, you know, it was largely run by, like, younger adults, like people who had fairly recently graduated college, I suppose.

6:01And I think I was more comfortable with people of that age. And so I think I was just happy to do anything they would let me do. And the first thing, there seemed to be some gap where nobody wanted to deal with the sound design. So I was, well, I'll do that. I put my hand up. I was, well, I'll deal with the sound design. I don't know anything about it. And that was really abysmal, I'm certain. But I was just desperate to be on. I liked to be present for the performances. And I liked the idea of being out at night. And all of that felt like very thrilling and exciting. So it pretty quickly morphed.

6:38But it wasn't until, again, this like, you know, when I moved on into this second half of high school that that felt more focused or that I really found my way towards what I do now. During your senior year at boarding school, your roommate was an acting student named Michael Arden, who has gone on to become a lifelong friend and collaborator. collaborator. Do you remember your first impression of him? Did you have any sense at all that this was going to be the significant relationship that it's been? No, I don't think so immediately. I think we were immediately close and friendly and I think connected with each other in that way.

7:21He actually appeared at Interlochen in the middle of, of I think my junior year. So he kind of came a little bit later, but it was a very like, it was a very small place in a very, in a smaller still theater department inside of, you know, a high school that only had like 400 kids at the time or something, all kind of like locked away in the woods in Northern Michigan. Yeah, I wish I could remember the details of, there's no like, like spark, but we did decide that we wanted to be roommates. That was a, that wasn't just a random assignment. We said, you know, at the end of our junior year, oh, we'll be roommates next year.

7:58And I think as we sort of existed in our tiny little cinderblock room together for a year, and especially in a year in which we were applying for college and trying to figure out what we were going to do and dreaming a lot about a potential future, that I think there were lots of dreams and schemes and thoughts, and I don't remember specifically what too many of them were, but we definitely were very connected at that time. But then, you know, afterwards, we like went our separate ways, as many people who, you know, go after high school and into college do. After Interlochen, you decided to study in Australia at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

8:40What drew you there? And what was that experience like? It was amazing. But first, I did something that really didn't succeed, which is that I just applied for schools in the States. And because I was at Interlochen and they had really amazing kind of college counseling and a very deep knowledge about all of the kind of training programs, although admittedly I was somewhat anomalous as a designer in that space. That was – I think I potentially was the only person who had that major when I graduated. So they had the knowledge that they had, but I was a little bit on my own. And I sort of looked at what the better programs were, and I tried to pick one for a sort of BFA program.

9:29I think it was pretty clear that I wanted to train. Like I wanted to be training my craft. Like Michael got into Juilliard, and that's it. And I think what I actually wanted was to also get into Juilliard, but Juilliard doesn't train designers. And so I was kind of looking for a version of that, and I do recall being pretty unclear about what to do. and a number of schools were pretty enthusiastic about taking me because again at this point I'm sort of like 17 year old who had a who could I don't think I could do very many things but I was I had a strong and clear sense of exactly what I wanted to do and I was probably like a little bit ahead of the curve as far as like some of the kind of skill set stuff and so they were all excited and fawning around and I and I didn't have again I didn't have an especially clear sense of what I should do.

10:21So I just picked one. I think they maybe were the one that offered me the most scholarship, or it seemed like the facilities were the nicest. But it ended up being at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio. And I was the only one from the department to go there. I didn't have any friends there. And I went and I lasted about a week. I moved to Cincinnati, and it was immediately clear that this wasn't going to work. And I felt as though I had been thrust back in time, and I was suddenly back in this kind of like gen ed, public high school thing that I really didn't mesh well with me and that I didn't understand.

11:05And about a week went by, and the person who had, I think it was the head of the department, of the design department maybe, and he'd been the person who'd been kind of trying to get me to go there. I think I had a class with him, and after the class, he said, do you want to go to lunch? And I said, sure. And he said, this isn't going to work for you, is it? I remember this very distinctly. And I said, no, I don't think it is. And he said, I don't think it is either. I want to tell you this because I think you get most of your tuition money back if you withdraw before the whatever, two weeks or three weeks or whatever it was.

11:38And so I did. And my parents supported that decision, I think, somewhat grudgingly, but at this point, they knew me well enough to know that I was just going to kind of do whatever I needed to do, and they were behind that. And so then I started to look abroad, because I felt like I'd exhausted my options in the States, and that's when I found NIDA, which is the National Institute of Dramatic Art. It looked to be exactly what I wanted it to be, so I told my parents this crazy idea. And my father, who I said he was a university administrator, he was a study abroad advisor. So he was keen on this idea and had some connections at the affiliated university.

12:19And so I flew down there with this sort of preposterous model box, you know, it's like a scale model in a steamer trunk that we bought at Target of Cabaret. and I went in for this interview and got the thing out and I glued it back together because it's definitely broke on the flight or whatever and my now person who I consider my mentor Peter Cook just ripped it to shreds he absolutely eviscerated me and the work and I was I mean I was horrified because my parents had like flown me to Australia to like do this thing and I I thought, oh my God, well, this is a catastrophe and I have no options.

13:05And I really felt like, oh, this is going to be terrible. And then he called the next day and said, oh, I'd love you to join the program. And I thought, oh, he was right. The work was bad. I just never heard that before. And it was kind of a revelation and so important. And it's sort of the very beginning of a pedagogy that I found immensely valuable, actually. But it was startling. And so, it proved to be all the things I wanted it to be, I think. It was essential, I think, in this training model for him to teach us how to edit ourselves and how to not be precious about the work and how to actually recognize what a good idea is and to develop, like, taste.

13:59which is so hard, I think. You do have to sort of be exposed to things and talk about them critically and have a dialectic. And it was so amazing for all of that, as well as all of the sort of, you know, just the nitty gritty. It was really, and what it actually boils down to is that it was a master's program. Like, it just, it was structured exactly like an MFA, but it happened to be a bachelor's degree. And that was the best possible thing. That's actually what I was looking for. I was ready to just, like, get on with it. You said this about Peter Cook's training. His training was rigorous, relentless, punishing, and exhausting.

14:40And as such, he produced designers who are rigorous and relentless and never stopped pushing for excellence and originality. And you go on to state that 20 years after graduating, you still hear his voice in the back of your head daily. What is he saying to you? It's kind of the devil on your shoulder a little bit, but it's always about looking critically at things. And that's what we're supposed to do. You know, any designer, I think, really needs to sit back and not spend so much time appreciating the work. You've got to sit down and go, like, what is this? And constantly reevaluate it. And that's what it's all about.

15:19I think it's that skill and knowing when to hang on to something and trust that the idea just hasn't worked itself out yet, but it's a good idea. and that could be in a physical manifestation or an intellectual manifestation or whatever, or when something's like, not that, but we should just move on. I think that's a really important thing to be able to bring into collaborations, because the work that we do is not, it's the opposite of the artist and the Garrett, right? It's like a fully collaborative, there's a lot of groupthink involved, and I think that's a really important thing to bring to bear.

15:58as you're navigating those, you know, sort of interpersonal artistic relationships. You've said that designers don't really get a big break. And I found that to be true in lots of different design disciplines. But there was, was there ever something that felt like a real turning point for you professionally? There is, but I think it's much more recent. And I feel like it has come with the industry recognizing Michael and I as a kind of artistic unit. And we now also share a producing company, so we're also a kind of a producing unit. And that has actually helped people to kind of frame that for themselves, because it's a slightly unusual relationship.

16:46To me, that has felt like the big shift, where I'm in more conversations, and about work earlier and more globally. And that has really felt like it because I see, I think, my path now and going forward as one that is not about being a gun for hire and is actually about building on a strong foundation of a single collaboration that is continuing to yield work that I'm the most interested in in a way of working that I'm the most interested in. And it actually is something that brings me back to the earliest parts of my career, where after graduating from NIDA, which was like a three-year program, I felt that I needed to stay in Australia for a little bit because I only knew people there.

17:41It was something that I kind of acknowledged as a sacrifice when I went down there in the first place, I was like, well, I'm not going to make any connections. I think they talk a lot about that when you're talking about going to college, about making connections with people. And I was like, well, I'm going to make connections, but I'm going to make connections with a bunch of Australian people, and if I ever have to go back, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I did realize, I think, pretty early on there that I did want to go back, that the industry there is a little smaller than I felt could really sustain as many designers were coming into the industry, and I had a much bigger pond to swim in, and I had the ability to be there.

18:23So I thought, well, I will go back to the States, I will go to New York, but I'm going to need to do some work before I return. I need to build a portfolio, I need to do some projects so I can show people something, otherwise I think I'm going to be a little stuck. And so I stayed for a couple of years to just do some work, and I ended up really only working with one person. And it was an amazing time. And it's this really brilliant director called Anthony Skews, who's still a very close friend of mine. And we did, you know, three, four, five projects in close succession. We met, he directed, I think, a show that I designed in my final year there, and then we subsequently just kept working together.

19:04And it really was an analogous collaboration to what I have with Michael, and it was, let's say, the second most valuable to me artistically. And so I've realized, oh, that's actually what I thrive on. That's what drives me. I don't do so well in situations where it's constantly new collaborators. I really only want to be doing this one thing. And so that's a long way of answering that question, but I think that has felt like the turning point, which also just coincides with more time in the industry and knowing more people. I mean, the Broadway community is small, but it's not tiny. And gradually, just with more time in it, you sort of really feel like you get to know the world of it a little bit better and vice versa.

19:55So you initially thought your Broadway debut was going to be the Sam Shepard play Fool for Love at the Freedmen. But Deaf West Spring Awakening opened a couple of weeks earlier. So you had two shows on Broadway at the same time right out of the gate. In Spring Awakening, your design how to accommodate two languages at once, spoken English and American Sign Language. How did that inform and affect your design choices? we wanted to make a space that could hold a lot of complex visual information as it concerned communication and as such i think the space wanted to be able to like recede and so it had a kind of cold like industrial quality i think we wanted to like the stuff that is exclusively in american sign language is also subtitled for the hearing audience or audience who doesn't speak asl um and And so we needed architectural opportunities dotted around to do that that wouldn't get buried.

20:59So, yeah, I think that design, as it concerned for the dual languages, was just a lot about kind of like visual restraint and keeping it like simple enough that it had the right energy and it didn't feel like spare and wand, but that it sort of had a quiet about it. In 2018, you designed the set for the Tony Award-winning play Once on this Island, and the set transformed Circle in the Square into a post-hurricane Haitian landscape. And you went on a research trip to Port-au-Prince, which you said changed the direction of what you wanted to do. And I was wondering if you can talk about in what way that happened.

21:43This is a project with Michael Arden, and we had been talking about it for some time, and I think, you know, Once on this Island is specifically set on Haiti. and it's alluded to in the story and it's a little bit more like allegorical in the text but we wanted to be really specific about it because that's a real place and it's it's incredibly interesting and it unlocks the characters who are based in in the voodoo religion what that tiny nation has gone through is is complex and challenging and and and ripe and we felt like If we're going to tell the story, we just have to be honest about where it's taking place.

22:27So that was a start. And so, you know, we came in with a bunch of research that was, you know, a lot about hurricane devastation and earthquake devastation and felt like, well, you know, this is about this community and this is their landscape and this is where they are. And this is how we're going to tell the story. And, you know, there was a big idea about it being reorchestrated for non-traditional instruments was a big, like, seed of this, of the visual language. And we worked with this group called Bang on a Can that kind of makes instruments out of trash, basically. And we thought, well, this is really where it's at.

23:03But so we had gone pretty far in the process. And I believe by the time we went to Haiti, we knew we had a theater and we knew we were doing it in Circle in the Square. And we were pretty far along in the process. And we went down there. And we felt that we had to go. We thought this was like, we can't, we got to see this place. And that was a time, very fortunately, in Haiti where it was reasonably safe to go there. Yes. Which is, you know, I think not the case anymore. which would not be possible. So we were able to go, and it was incredible, because it looked like all the things, and it looks extraordinary.

23:41I mean, you know, it looks absolutely extraordinary. And this kind of, like, city that's, like, half-destroyed, colonial ruins, and some entirely intact colonial buildings, in a sort of like well-heeled subset of the social strata, like who literally like live up on a mountain and it's quite separate from the other stuff. But what really struck us about it visually is that it was constantly being reconstructed, that in the most beautiful, inventive, creative ways, colorful and lush and kind of improvised a bit, But always moving forward, and that was the part we were missing. We were kind of, like, stuck in the devastation, and what we were missing was the idea that, like, no, no, no, the storm has happened, the earthquake has happened, and then we immediately start rebuilding the space.

24:41And so it really, like, the container held, the idea held, but all of the detail changed. It felt like, oh, we're not in a ruin. We're in a ruin that something is being done to very actively. So it had that quality to it, and it was so invaluable. But I mean, also just some of the things we were able to experience there were completely wild. old. My in-laws are from Haiti and my wife is first generation American. So Haiti is a big part of our lives. We saw the show when it first came out. We actually sat in the front row and the play was sitting around. So we literally felt as if we were in the play.

25:28I mean, we were in the You definitely were. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, sand on our shoes and so incredibly immersive. But I really appreciated what you said about the devastation along with something else. And I do think that that's a lot of hope for what can still still be because it is really one of the most beautiful places on the planet. it. How were you thinking about the sort of round space and the sight lines and the sort of immersive experience that the audience was having while the play was actually running? We imagined it from the very beginning for that theater. You know, Circle in the Square is the only Broadway theater that is not a conventional proscenium or mostly a conventional proscenium.

26:15And, you know, it's a theater that can function in the round, and it's very, very intimate. And it is perfect for a sort of, like, experiential, immersive approach, because, you know, everybody kind of walks in the same doors, and the whole space is laid out before you, and then you have to sort of maneuver through it to get to your seat. and there's very little separation between what is the stage and the audience, and we try to collapse that even further. It was always baked into the idea that everybody would sit in this circle to hear this story, and the opportunities for just putting it around everyone.

26:48And especially with the tactileness, as you say, of having your feet in the sand is a meaningful idea, I think. So these events, flooding, earthquake, whatever, felt like they were happening to the theater, not being placed inside the theater. So, you know, we made it look like one of this, this bombs had flooded and was being held back with sandbags, but then you had that humidity in the air of the water. And it just, you know, you kind of were getting it in every direction. We, you know, there was a lot of wind we used to like, give you that feeling. And all of those things are uniquely possible in that space, because you just are there and you're part of it.

27:26I want to talk to you about one more production that you worked on before we talk about maybe Happy Ending. And I'm not going to be able to even remotely do justice to how many questions I actually have about this particular production, but I'm going to at least try to get one or two in just to make sure people know that you worked on this one as well, which is the revival of the Play Parade. It's a harrowing play about the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish American man, in 1915. Interesting in that you used actual historical photographs and projections, and we see how that evolves to your most recent work.

28:10The scale of the stage had a very intimate feel to it. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how you approached scale in that particular design. Part of it is that Parade was born out of significant limitation in that it began its life as part of the Encores series. Encores is a, they are, let's call them semi-staged or staged kind of like semi-productions of musicals. This was not that. This was everybody was, nobody was holding a script. Everybody was, you know, doing the thing. But they're done on a really, really small budget in an incredibly short amount of time. And so part of the vocabulary of parade was simply born out of necessary economy of scale.

29:03And it felt like our greatest strength visually was actually the people. Not just because there's so many of them and that they populate something and create a visual landscape, but because the show is dealing so much with the idea of mob mentality or the idea of a jury, your peers making decisions about you. You know, there's so many sort of like pieces of connective tissue that felt really valuable there and to just sort of have them all present most of the time and therefore like further compressing quite a small space and forcing most of the action up onto this further elevated platform. always felt like energetically right for the piece.

29:46But again, also, you know, it's, Michael is such a stageous thing so beautifully and collaborated with choreographers that we work with a lot, Lauren Yelengo Grant and Cree Grant. And, you know, they just made, they just conjured that whole world out of nothing. And I thought it was really magnificent. And I will say, you know, not every director would know what to do with that space. In fact, I would venture that most directors would not. It was exposed. It was spare. That's really, really challenging to deal with. You've spoken about the idea that simplicity, rather than scale or cost, can be the most powerful tool in design.

30:30And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about that. Well, I think it can. I mean, you know, ultimately, the theatrical contract with an audience sets you up for success in this way. They are there to receive a story, they understand it is not actually happening, and that their imagination is an incredibly powerful tool, so long as, you know, the work is presented confidently, and it provides opportunity to unlock the imagination, to seed imagery, to provide a framework that allows you to fill in the gaps. And I think it can be incredibly powerful and essentialized, but it's challenging.

31:18It's hard, and it cuts a little bit against the kind of American obsession with naturalism in theatrical space. And it's something that you have to work out a little bit, but it can be really, really extraordinary. I mean, some of my work that I'm the proudest of had an immensely simple scaled back muscularity about it. Let's talk about your brand new play, Maybe Happy Ending. And for our listeners, I want to share that I'm going to be biased with some of my questions, I think, because honestly, this is one of the best plays I've ever seen in my life. And I have been going to Broadway since I was 13 years old.

32:04And you all know that I'm now in my 60s. That's a lot of plays. So let's talk about the play, Dane. Let's do it. The show is about two retired helper robots called Helperbots. They're named Oliver and Claire. But the set is not really sci-fi oriented. In fact, it feels what I'm going to be calling a bit post-mid-century modern nostalgic with a very of-the-moment visual gestalt. Don't know if that's in any way what you intended, but that's the sense that I got. Can you talk a little bit about how you approach designing this very unusual, very innovative set? There's a few things. And you've hit on a bunch of the important parts.

32:59It's a story that we need to weigh into because it's something we don't immediately know, right? It is an imagined near future. I think the circumstances involving, you know, sentient AI beings navigating the world is increasingly close to us and something that feels increasingly believable. But nonetheless, there was a gap to bridge. So I think we knew that in presenting this world, we wanted to lean away from the need to mythologize a kind of sci-fi universe and instead really focus closely on the characters and their lives and as such present them inside spaces. And their two sort of apartments are a really important part of the story, mostly in that they're not supposed to leave them.

33:58They've basically been placed there until such a time as they can't turn on anymore. those places felt like something we could hold on to that weren't didn't feel like they had the sort of like burnished quality of of of a sci-fi architecture that instead they felt you know a little um having fallen into disrepair you know that it had a kind of like roughness about it that i think is really relatable conjuring that aspect of the world was it was it is an important thing the other thing that for those who see it will know that it moves a lot and at a tremendous pace. And that's baked into the writing.

34:38And I think when I read it, I was like, oh my, to really do this justice. And because it is so much about two beings deciding to like boldly leave the space that they're not supposed to leave and go on an adventure. And it felt like we had to really take the audience with them, that this is about an experience opening up and expanding and really taking these beings beyond what they thought was possible. And so we wanted to try and give the audience a similar experience. So we needed to build a machine that would do that, that would really be able to convey this idea and convey these wonderful helper bots on an amazing journey and take the audience with them.

35:30And so I believe really strongly that in theater design, where you are frequently needing to present multiple places in one evening, that all of those places have the same kind of visual value that they are no there's not well these are the main sets and then these are these other little sets that are a bit of a throwaway and you know and there's a sort of like you know there's a tradition in musical theater of the kind of like well-made scenes that are written to be done in one and in in front of a curtain so that the set can be changed behind it you go back to the big set i sort of like reject that idea in contemporary theater making i think that if you're going to do 75 locations, those 75 locations have to have a set of equal value.

36:21So we needed a set of tools that would allow us to do that, which is a huge ask. It's an enormous problem. So another important aspect of it that is also, again, just like written in is the idea that we go inside these people's minds. We are let into their memory bank to see really critical pieces of information. It's how we learn about them. It's information that they share with each other. And that is something that we knew we had to do. There are entire characters that only exist in this format. So a video element, an element that was going to be digital on some level, felt like it was going to be a part of this world, and that we would need to address that and find a way to completely integrate it into the rest of the design so that it felt indistinguishable from the physical elements, and that's something we worked really, really hard to do.

37:23So those were the sort of like ingredients sitting in the pot before we even put the pot on the stove that we knew we sort of had to address, come to terms with. Maybe Happy Ending has perhaps the most technological visual beauty I've seen in a Broadway show, but it's a real counterpoint to the deep humanity embedded in this story about robots. And the design in many ways seems to erase the boundaries between technology and humanity. There are dream sequences, time sequences, erasure sequences, atmospheric sequences that are just breathtaking. Where did these ideas come from and how were you able to bring them to life?

38:18Well, first, thank you. That's an incredibly lovely assessment of this work. Again, I think basically everything you describe is asked for in the story. And I love the way that you're talking about the sort of tension between the coolness of the technological world, the sort of the literal and figurative kind of neon edge on it all, mixed with the most sort of surprisingly human story, which I think is the sort of like, it's the magic of the show is that you come in thinking you're going to see a story about robots and you're really holding the mirror up. instead. And I think that's a wonderful story about love.

39:03Exactly. Exactly. And so that tension, I love, and it feels really important. And I think it's important that these helper bots feel it, you know, they lack agency in the world. And it's something that they learn to have. And they make decisions for themselves, which is not something that they are, quote, programmed to do. And so them navigating a world that really moves around them. That is an idea that I think is woven through the design in an important way. And some of the other things, again, being inside their memories was something that we had to do. And it was so wonderful because it allowed us to create a visual vocabulary in the video.

39:59And I'm, you know, with this immensely talented George Reeve, who is the video designer on the show and my co-Tony nominee, is that we use those memories, those flashbacks, to show the audience how the helper bots see the world and the way that they process things and the way that they kind of myopically focus on the human being in front of them. And the background is not a thing that they process. And so when we use video, if you look closely at it, it's treated in exactly the same way. It's not a photorealistic backdrop. It's not in the place of scenery. It is a deliberately digital thing that is precisely the same way that they process the world.

40:47And now we're giving the audience that opportunity. That was really a gift here, because it's one of the hardest things to do as video becomes more and more a part of really a scenic design, actually, because now we're, what, even five years ago, certainly 10 years ago was really more like about projection. It was about projecting things on surfaces. Now the surfaces are all LED, and it's all—so it is physically manifested in the space, and so it really—it becomes scenic design. And I've taken a much greater interest in it recently because it's becoming impossible to parse the two things, and I think the point is you shouldn't.

41:27Like, if you're going to do it, you've got to make it all one thing. And it can be really hard to add digital ingredients to physical space. And I think we were just the opportunity of the relationship between technology as an idea in this show was just incredibly helpful in that way. Yeah, I remember, I think it was about 20 years ago, seeing Closer on Broadway, and that had a lot of technological innovation embedded in it, but it was really about two characters communicating on two screens. And that felt so mind-blowing. But the interesting thing about maybe Happy Ending, and I don't know if this was intentional, but you not only get into the sort of minds and hearts of these robots in a very tangible way, so you go into their internal dialogue, their internal lives, but then there are scenes that take you out into the world so much bigger.

42:26The Fireflies sequence, which just makes you feel like you're sitting above planet Earth. I'm sure you did intentionally, but I just had to bring that up because it was one of the things that I found so remarkable about the sets. Oh, well, yeah, no, I mean, I think a big part of what we're doing is about edge and boundary, you know, that we everything up into a point is framed by by irises, basically, which are kind of like, this is tell us what that is, because that's a big part. I mean, I know, I've read about them, but I think it's really important for my listeners to know what these irises are.

43:06Totally. So, you know, an iris is kind of an old-fashioned theatrical idea, but it is basically, you know, two planes moving horizontally towards the center and one plane moving vertically from out of sight to the floor. And, you know, it creates an expanding and contracting frame. And we use them a bunch. We have three of them. And they do a lot of heavy lifting. I mean, they're a really important part of the machine I was discussing that is about, like, conveyance. But they're also really about edge and boundary and scale in that, you know, we really begin the show in this, like, incredibly tight close-up on a plant, this, like, living thing.

43:47It's also how the show ends. And then it expands a little bit. another character in the show. Indeed. He's become famous at this point. So, you know, we start there and we expand a little bit more and we expand a little bit more. And it introduces a vocabulary that has this like sort of cellular vocabulary, almost like a graphic novel. It also some sort of like, there's filmic reference point. I mean, you know, they can create parallax in when moving with the other, you know, several other planes of things that are also moving and it's it's they're quite amazing things and they're again it's a sort of like it's a nostalgic theatrical idea that is made modern feeling by the fact that they're lined with these kind of like neon edges that also expand and contract kind of inch by inch as they go which is some great tech that's that's gotten better even since the first time we did it but they put everything in this frame and but the frame gets bigger and the frame gets bigger and then when they leave their homes it gets bigger still and it and it keeps going and then there's this amazing moment where it doesn't exist anymore and you're in a field of fireflies that has no edge it has no boundary and it is the sort of like turning point of the show it's a big like apotheosis moment.

45:08And it's very emotional, I think. I was weeping. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And it's largely conjured by, again, not unlike Parade, by the power of a volume of bodies in space, not to give too much away, but something that has been completely denied to the audience, and then something that has been taken away, a boundary that's taken away. I think there's some alchemy there that's pretty powerful. Yeah. You stated that one of the things that not only sets this production apart and is a feature in much of the work that you do with Michael Arden is your shared willingness to push dramatic sequences to the limit, demanding the kind of precision and timing that leaves no margin for error.

45:55And I've witnessed that now. And you go on to say that it makes your shows very nerve wracking for you to watch. How do you manage that kind of stress? Not well is the answer. I mean, I really don't like to sit during the—like, I prefer to stand for whatever reason. Like, I can't do anything if something goes wrong. Does anything ever go wrong? Almost never. Almost never. Oh, good. Good, good. But I never want that idea to be misconstrued that we are, like, flippant about safety because we are not. That's not what we're talking about. Oh, no, not at all.

47:02from. It's hard to get to the next thing. And when you're moving, I think our count in maybe Happy Ending is something like 75 distinct scenic moves, and the show is 100 minutes long. So, you know, every minute and 17 seconds, the set is moving. And so creating situations where the wheels could fall off the bus is a little nerve wracking. But also, I think it's essential because I want to believe, and I think it's true, that there are moments, maybe many moments in maybe Happy Ending, that the audience cannot understand spatially. They really just cannot parse what's going on. And I love that.

47:45And I'm really interested in that. I think it's exciting theatrically. It's really exciting theatrically for me, but I don't think it's that wonky. I think an audience can feel the thrill of something that is like, I don't know what just happened, but here we are, and here we are again, and here we are again. And this is something about that, again, all going back to this core of an idea that we really wanted to take the audience on something that felt profoundly like a journey, you know, an amazing, amazing, like, eye-opening journey, just like the characters do. And so it felt necessary to do that.

48:20But we also, like, Yeah, as I say, it is a bit of a feature of Michael and my work. You mentioned earlier Charles Dickens of Christmas Carol, which we did on Broadway a couple of years ago, and is also a film. And that, in many ways, shares some DNA with maybe Happy Ending in terms of how it moves. The difference being that that show is done almost in complete darkness. it's a little like largely lit by candles or like these tiny surgical little shafts of light and so you know this space is just morphing around this person in a way that the audience can't see it's a little more perceptible and maybe happy ending but there's similar ideas about just like many many we call them axes of automation of things moving in planes or rotating or flying or irising or whatever, all happening at once in a very, very carefully honed relationship to one another, and then with actors in the middle of it, and lighting and video, and then you get these sequences that are, you know, can be pretty extraordinary.

49:18But yeah, I, you know, I watch that show, and I know that my heart rate goes up, I can feel it. And this is what happens to me, and it's often in theater, it's actually, even if the show's not that complex, there's something, It's a heightened thing if it's my thing. And also sometimes when it's other people's things, sometimes I just kind of physiologically react. But also... Well, it's live. You're in the moment. Yeah. Anything could happen. That's right. And that's particularly like, I know all of the things that are coming next. And I just go like, oh, God. I really have to buckle up for it.

49:51But it's fun. You know, it's okay. Dan, I have one last question for you. I read that you're working on upcoming productions of The Lost Boys on Broadway and Hercules in London. And you said that you also want to expand into other mediums, including film and opera and installation. Any of those genres on the horizon? I'll break that down. I think the expansion that I'm really interested in at the moment is actually around producing. I find it to be somewhat anomalous in the American theater as compared to the American film industry or the American television industry, where the creatives do not have producing stake inherently.

50:36That's baked in for TV writers. It's baked in for actors, people who created TV shows. It's baked in for a lot of actors. It's not happening in the theater in a real way. It happens a little bit more in the UK. You co-produced Parade, right? Yep, we did. As well as maybe Happy Ending. We also co-produced Sunset Boulevard this year and The Roommate. And that's feeling very interesting to me because I think there's a siloing that can happen between the creative side and the producing side that I find. find, and I think that Michael finds, he is my producing partner as well as my creative partner, we both find that a little counterproductive.

51:16And we find that when we are able to have more holistic conversation around every aspect of what's happening from the creative side to the business side and the inevitable and profound intersection of those things in the commercial theater, we get a better result. And something more sustainable and more interesting is made, and people understand it a little bit better. And so I'm very, very interested in that. Dane Laffrey, thank you so much for making so much work that matters. And thank you for joining me today on Design Matters. Thank you. It was an immense pleasure. To learn more about Dane's work, you can go to his website at danelaffrey.com.

51:58to see more of Dane's work, go to the Broadway show, maybe happy ending. This is the 20th year we've been podcasting Design Matters, and I'd like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I'm Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon. Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest-running branding program in the world.

52:32The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.