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"The Sets of Harvey on Broadway\nAD100 architect and interior designer David Rockwell talks about creating scenery around the classic comedy's invisible leading man\nThere's no curtain, so the audience enters the theater to find the Dowd mansion. \"We thought given that the house has been in his family for generations, it was Victorian clearly but it could be Victorian with more air, so that lead us to create the cyclorama,\" David Rockwell explained. \"We felt like the comedy was going to play better if the place felt real.\"\nElwood's social-climbing sister Veta Louise Simmons decides the only way to save the family from Elwood's embarrassing condition is to commit him. Rockwell researched institutions of the period to guide his design. \"We were surprised that the sanitarium in those days was like a retreat or a spa,\" noted Rockwell. \"So by using a beautiful green spalike color in the sanitarium, you get a maximum effect.\"\nRockwell worked closely with director Scott Ellis to create a set that worked best for the script's comedic tempo. \"We talked about the need for quick entrances and exits. So in the sanitarium there are five doors in and out. There's a demand to make sure that the set doesn't slow down the play.\"\nRockwell's scene changes add to the magical realism of the play. \"It was challenging to design sets that felt complete enough that you wouldn't anticipate the turntables, so a lot of the furniture steps out over them.\" To make the transition from the Dowd mansion to the sanitarium, Rockwell explained, \"All the pieces have to move at a prescribed time. It was complicated to choreograph, and it was complicated to do it in a way that the audience didn't know it was going to happen.\"\nAt the end of the first act, the audience sees Harvey for the first time\u2014the portrait of Dowd and his best friend was one of Rockwell's biggest challenges. \"We did a lot of research on rabbits in art. There were two obvious ways to go: one was cute and fluffy, and the other was menacing. There were so many menacing bunnies in art, and we wanted provocative and thoughtful.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/david-rockwell-harvey-sets-broadway-slideshow>