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I'm Beowulf Borat and I am nominated for scenic design for POTUS and for Flying Over Sunset
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It is Tony Day, my friend, and double nominee! It's kind of amazing. I was saying to my wife the other day that Tony nomination day is kind of like Christmas
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except no matter how good you were that year or you think you were that year, you never know if Santa's going to show up
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And when he shows up twice, it's just, wow. It's a wonderful feeling
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These were two incredible shows you designed, one of course being a play, one of course being a musical
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What gave you the most joy of working on POTUS and what gave you the most joy of working on Flying Over Sunset
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You know, it's kind of the same answer for both. It's the directors. That is the collaboration for me
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and when that is good, the process is amazing and the result's going to be amazing
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So if I get nominated for something, it's Susan Stroman and James Laplaine also
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We figure these things out together, and it's not that they tell me what to do
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We have bad ideas around, but both shows develop sort of based on what those directors are doing
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And I was saying to somebody, the set for POTUS only works because Susan Stroman knows how to stage things within an inch of their life
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And the way that really works is there's always action going on. There's always a story being told within it
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So as we're moving through, she always has the actors telling stories, not verbally necessarily
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with action, with movement, and that's why that set works. And Flying Over Sunset was similar. It was kind of an abstract representation of your brain on LSD
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but that was an expression of the story James was trying to tell
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And that's what's exciting and fun to me, is every project is different
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because it's me kind of melding with the director, trying to figure out how do we visually represent what this is about
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and how do we get ourselves from place to place and show the audience what's going on
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And you're wearing two pins today! Two pins! I demanded my two pins up front
