Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500164
9 4 P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 3 Abbott Elementary - The Beginning As I type this out, I'm currently working on designs for season three of Abbott Elementary. The show has moved stages and redesigned its school facade each year, and season three will be no exception. Each season has been an exercise in making the sets work more efficiently for the crew while also adding more hallways, staircases or buildings across the street from the school facade to ground the series in the specific world of West Philadelphia. It's a place where schools are four stories tall and are situated in the middle of residential neighborhoods. No sprawling campuses like Los Angeles. Not too unlike Chicago, where I am from. With the success of Abbott Elementary, it's easy to forget that it started out as a midseason replacement show. It was in the middle of COVID, and I got a call to meet for twelve episodes of a new show with a young show runner named Quinta Brunson and a frequent collaborator of mine, director/EP Randall Einhorn. Also on the call were EP's Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker. The pilot was already shot on location, but that was not going to be possible going into a series. Schools were back to in-person learning, and there is always the desire to keep as much as possible on the sound stages for efficiency and cost. Once I was on board, we set about discussing stage space (plentiful), timelines (limited) and money (never enough). I hired Art Director Suzan Wexler, B u i l d i n g a H i t C o m e d y A B B O T T E L E M E N T A R Y B Y M I C H A E L W H E T S T O N E , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R A. INTERIOR ABBOTT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SET. DRAWN IN VECTORWORKS AND TWINMOTION BY TOM WAGMAN. OVERHEAD MODEL VIEW. B. SCHOOL GYM. PENCIL SKETCH BY MICHAEL WHETSTONE. C. CLASSROOM. PENCIL SKETCH BY MICHAEL WHETSTONE. D. INTERIOR ABBOTT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SET. VECTORWORKS MODEL BY TOM WAGMAN. A