Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1433736
The ultimate piece of the Moondance puzzle would be its role in the unday numbera direct homage to the song of the same name in Sunday in the Park with George, which was written and composed by Stephen Sondheim, Larson's musical theatre hero and mentor. The conceit would be that at the height of a busy and chaotic brunch shift, the diner patrons and sta would break into song and the set itself would somehow open up in order for them to arrange themselves into a pastiche of the ondheim show. We explored a few ideas for how this moment would work before settling on having the front wall on a hinge of sorts so that it could lower to the ground, transforming itself into a stage. Achieved under the watchful eye of Supervising Art Director Debbie Wheatley and via clever drafting by Je Mconald, special e ects rigged the set with a pulley system that would be erased in post by visual e ects. Much thought was put into how to outfi t interior wall elements that were important set dressing features so that they would not be hazardous for the cast as they stepped out across the de facto proscenium. For instance, the track lights that were installed above the windows had to be designed to dismantle uickly and windows needed to be retrofi tted with oneinch sheets of plexi so that actors would not put their feet through glass. New York Theatre Workshop tick, tick…BOOM! is uniquely structured in that it cuts back and forth between a o roadway performance and the 1990 events that inspired it. There was never any uestion that the fi lm would set the 1992 production in a theatre other than East 4th Street's New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW). Initially an auto-body garage, which explains its defi ning exposed brick look, the space was converted in the early '80s and would serve as the birthplace of a proto version of our fi lm's source material, not to mention the original run of Rent. Of course, NYTW has remained a thriving incubator of plays and musicals with a tightly scheduled slate, making it impossible to use the theatre itself. The production settled on shooting only the exterior and the lobby there and devised a plan to fi lm the interior performance work elsewhere. After several rounds of scouting made it apparent that there were no other independent theatres in the area that had quite the same industrial look, we decided to install a stage and seating into a warehouse space owned by a seltzer factory in ushwick to capitalie on its similar brick walls. It was not an ideal solution as there were considerable egress and soundproofi ng issues that had to be resolved, but we couldn't a ord to build it outright so we committed to the approach. Jump cut to early March when whispers of a COVID shutdown became a reality. Everything was put on hold for fi ve months. y the time the show was back up and running in mid-August, it had become apparent that the seltzer factory was no longer a viable option, as there was no way to outfi t it with proper air fi ltration. o, we went back to the drawing board and sometimes the best solutions are the ones that are right in front of you. Like all other venues, NYTW had been shuttered throughout the pandemic and was sitting empty waiting for theatre to safely return. It just so happened that we had a show to put on minus an audience. The only issue with shooting at the real NYTW was that they had recently upgraded their seating. Fortunately, we had already sourced beaten-up and mismatched vintage chairs for the seltzer factory version of the set, so we swapped them out to add a needed layer of grunge. D. NY THEATRE WORKSHOP. SHOT IN THE ACTUAL LOCATION. PRODUCTION STILL. D