Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538080
walkthroughs of the completed sets on Stage 21 and Stage 22 on the Warner Bros. lot. I perched a sculpted owl—an auspicious symbol of fortune and wisdom born through hardship— atop a few of the columns hidden throughout the set. The owl is sometimes considered a bridge between life and the afterlife. It feels a fierce and appropriate symbol for this "Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center" emergency department—a place where life hangs in the balance on a minute-by- minute basis of every 15-hour shift. I had a finite amount of money and infinite gratitude that, here in Los Angeles, I could give a beautiful group of people work at a time when studios were ghost towns. We were able to create an emergency department world built by over a hundred people and now populated by hundreds of others a day during production. And as we enter our second season, perhaps it is even an example of sustainable television. We created an immersive experience more like environmental theater than classic television, and a happy place to work. Maybe we breathed new life into a sidelined genre, all the while giving people in the real world of healthcare something that, by all reports, makes them feel seen and authentically represented. Twenty-five years ago, a producer—I had just finished a pilot with her—called and said, "You don't want to do a hospital show, do you? This would be boring for you," and I answered, "Well, you just told me I might be bored and I wouldn't want to do it, so I guess the answer is 'no.'" That call, it turned out, was ER. I continued with a decade more of movies and other great projects. It was kismet that I turned down the opportunity to design the original ER all those years ago. For me, The Pitt was the right show at the right time. I have not lost sight of my good fortune. ADG Nina Ruscio, Production Designer Josh Lusby, Jacqueline Glynn, Art Directors Caroline Quinn, Randall Wilkins Dean Wolcott, Set Designers Jason Zev Cohen, Christopher Isenegger, Graphic Designers Matt Callahan, Set Decorator D E