0:00
Congratulations, you've got a Tony
0:08
Thank you, thank you. I'm thrilled. I'm over the moon. This show was huge and difficult, biggest set I've ever done, and it's nice to work
0:15
so hard and be recognized for it. What made this so special for you, Bayer
0:20
You know, what I've got to say, I realized this week that this might happen, and that
0:25
I was going to have a chance to stand up in front of 4,000 of my peers, and I talked a
0:28
little bit about some stuff that's near and dear to me. I run something called the 152 Project, where we raise money from other designers and give
0:37
grants to young designers. We raised $100,000 last year, and so I got to sort of open that to the room
0:44
But also, another thing that's near and dear to me is, as we are striving for more representation
0:49
in this community, and it's so important, we can't leave out women
0:53
50% of the population is not 50% of the theater industry, and as we strive to do better on
1:00
every front, we can't forget that one, and it's very important to me
1:03
You know, besides that, you have stretched the whole art of set design, because you brought
1:08
back the hand-painted, you know, we don't do hand-painting anymore. We grew up on that, watching that
1:16
Boris Aronson. Yes. It is. This show, because the show is set in 1946, it's a golden age of Broadway style musical
1:24
it was crucial to me that we do hand-painted drops, and so we have 12 hand-painted drops
1:29
They're pieces of singular artwork, 40 feet wide, 35 feet tall, and 8 of the 12 are painted
1:35
by a single person, this wonderful Ukrainian artist who I've worked with for years named
1:39
Irina Portnagina, and she painted 8 of those. She came out of retirement for me to paint this show, and it is sort of a dying art form
1:48
and I'm glad to have had an opportunity to do it in such stellar fashion
1:52
Thank you for bringing back golden age artists who worked in this business
1:57
Hold this up, spin it for me, and just tell me what comes to mind
2:02
You know, I'm not sure anything comes to mind. I'm delighted. I'm so happy
2:06
I feel so grateful for this. It is, you know, getting to do every show is its own reward, genuinely, but getting
2:12
recognized for it is awfully nice. Thank you.
