David Rockwell, one of the world’s leading architects, feels most at home in the theater. Chalk that up to his mother, Joanne, who was a vaudeville dancer and choreographer who established a community theater in Deal, New Jersey. The thrill of participating in the productions of the Deal Players never left Rockwell, even after he had won global fame as the creative force behind, among other disciplines, hotels (W), restaurants (Nobu), airline terminals (JFK’s Jet Blue), museums (Walt Disney in San Francisco), and recreation areas (New York’s innovative Imagination Playground).The prolific artist, who has designed sets for twenty Broadway shows, has just received his sixth Tony Award nomination for his work on the revival of “She Loves Me” at Studio 54. Critics raved about both the show and its design, which from curtain up subsumes the audience in the romance of a 1930s Budapest parfumerie. The musical, directed by Scott Ellis and starring Zachary Levi and Laura Benanti, has been nominated for a total of eight Tonys, including Best Revival. And while “Hamilton” is likely to dominate on June 12 when the awards are doled out at the Beacon Theatre, one that may escape the megahit’s grasp is in the competition for sets. Rockwell’s detailed and sumptuous vision is just that exceptional.Moreover, the designer also managed to earn acclaim for two other shows this season: the revival of A.R. Gurney’s “Sylvia” and “On Your Feet!,” the new musical about Gloria and Emilio Estefan directed by Jerry Mitchell, which was splashed with the vibrant tropical colors of Miami and its Cuban émigrés.The restless artist is also onto his 21st show, next season’s revival of the musical “Falsettos,” and is also the designer chosen to renovate the Helen Hayes Theatre for the non-profit theater, Second Stage.At a recent press scrum celebrating the Tony nominees, Rockwell spoke of what makes him run as though there might not be another tomorrow. Since you’re so successful in other fields, why would you check into the Broadway asylum? It’s the asylum that first intrigued me. I came to New York seeking a certain kind of energy that was captured by the theater. It was the thing that seduced me about the city, a community that was mythic, in a way. It’s unbelievably emotional and moving to be a part of a community that you admire.What’s the draw? I’m intrigued by it because it’s an incredible group of artists that are craving experiences for the moment and I think that’s been an important part of how I’ve lived my life. In some ways, it’s the ultimate thrill for me.As an architect, how do you balance the ephemerality of theater versus the solidity of architecture? I believe that all design is storytelling; it’s just that the tool kits are different. The tool kit of architecture is one of infrastructure and permanence. Theater involves live transformation. And I think the temporal quality is acknowledged. There are many architects who want to create things that last forever. And I learned early on that things don’t last forever and that celebrating the moment has a kind of power. The reality is that the work I do in the theater is the most personal work I do. It touches who I am as a person in a very deep way. What led to this personal philosophy? I think a series of things: I lost my dad when I was three; my family moved a lot, from Chicago to the Jersey shore and then, when I was twelve, to Mexico. My mom passed when I was fifteen and that was incredibly difficult for me because so much of celebrating the moment came from her and her love of theater. She had started a community theater, The Deal Players, in New Jersey and I loved being a part of that. What did being part of your mother’s theater teach you about collaboration? The theater on the Jersey Shore turned a sleepy private suburb into this acting-out community which everyone was part of. The local dentist would be in the play. And that transfers to “She Loves Me.” The show could not work if everyone from the stage manager to the prop master did not fall in love with it. My sense of collaboration is all linked to “play.” In all my work, play is incredibly important. In “She Loves Me,” you give permission to 1300 people at each performance to become a community and to engage in a sense of play. That sort of story telling, paradoxically, is all the more needed in a world mediated with technology and virtual connection.Given the high demands on your time, why “She Loves Me”? When Scott [Ellis, the director] approached me, his main criteria was that he wanted to do something with the show physically that had never before been done. And that immediately intrigued me. I’ll only work with directors who invite you to explore. If I know the answer to any project before I begin, then that short-circuits any investigation. The fear and anxiety that I’m not sure how to do this propels everyone to lean forward to try to do things they haven’t done before.What were the particular challenges for a show set in 1930s Budapest and originally written in 1963? It was a joy to be able to work on a musical that was part of the golden age of musicals, which is what interested me in theater in the first place. The challenge was to reinvent that in a new way, using new technology with a new team.How did you use these advances to help the actors subsume themselves in this old-fashioned parfumerie? There were a couple of levels. The first level was that the set had to be detailed enough to convince the actors as well as the audience of the authenticity of this world. Of the 350 perfume bottles on the set, 25 of them are moved throughout the show. The three sales persons had demands to make their stations more real, where to put the sales receipts, for example. The second level was to establish a sense of security among the actors because of the amount of automation. It looks like a unit set but it is really four separate pieces and Scott had the actors weaving in and out of pieces.There appears to be an enormous amount of split-second timing during scene changes. It’s really a dance where the set is one of the dancers. It’s like a Swiss watch. The actors couldn’t believe how tight it was; there was a half-inch tolerance between those counters. But I’m not interested in these effects for effects sake. I’m interested in effects for emotional storytelling.You’re in the process of renovating the venerable old Helen Hayes Theatre for Second Stage. Where do you start? I’ve always been interested in transforming things. Even in buildings, entrances are some of the most powerful elements. When we design a building the entry doors are carefully considered. They are equivalent to a proscenium in the theater. When the curtains go up and the lights come on, you’re introduced to a completely different world. The magic begins when you enter through the doors.
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