Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1539634
production offices), I found this fun electric vibe of a paint color in "Blue Echo" that I used all over the first floor and then sparingly throughout to indicate how close or far from the stage a set was. A singular existing dressing room wound up playing as three different rooms. The crew added a few plug walls and a beautiful raised geometric patterned wallpaper that I was only able to afford because we amortized it across the three sets. And set decorator Jennifer Lukehart masterfully redressed each iteration of the dressing room. There was Ruby's, Ava's ex-girlfriend-turned- massive-star, there was Dance Mom's and the boof heard round the world, and there was Mayor Jo's PR appearance after extracurricular activities with some hockey players. Mayor Jo needed to enter on a Zamboni; one of several "Late Night" style gags that needed to look like an Art Department built it overnight to capture the headlines. In this instance, it was a propane-powered sweeper methodically covered in vinyl, tape, and foamcore by the construction department from a sketch. There was the palanquin that was a scratch build that had to be both light enough for the stuntmen to carry and sturdy enough for Jean to feel safe riding on it. The season also had had desk gags and cooking segments, poker tables and pianos. There was also the production side where the Art Department needed to design a mix of practical offices, offices built on stage, a conference room, a writer's bullpen, a craft service kitchen, hallways on hallways, bathrooms, an HR room and a focus group room. Our actual production offices were our palette, pulling details and finishes to blur the line with what was a practical or a constructed environment. Then there were the private spaces. The series had two rooms for Deb: a touchup room with a built-in vanity echoing circular mirrors from her past, and her office, which in real life also had to function as the costume designer's office/fitting room. I shared finishes between the two to give Deborah a very specific space to inhabit while tying in the colors to her stage curtain, an invitation to her viewers to enter her mind and place. One challenge in designing for episodic is how often the Art Department is forced to get creative with diminishing time and space. In our scripts, we had all these production spaces we'd need to consider: the white boxes we all inhabit at the start of a season, filled with mismatched furniture, idiosyncrasies and previous owners' "choices." We were to reimagine them five times over, using a lot of the existing guts and F. "LATE NIGHT" DANCE MOM DRESSING ROOM. SET PHOTO. G. DEBORAH'S "LATE NIGHT" TOUCH-UP ROOM. SET PHOTO. H. & I. DEBORAH'S "LATE NIGHT" OFFICE. SET PHOTOS. F G H I