When it comes to things like authenticity, Allen Moyer is not your typical set designer. He's represented this season on Broadway with Roundabout's After Miss Julie, where he has literally recreated the massive kitchen of a heralded English estate for the Patrick Marber play which is set in 1945. To the extent possible, everything had to be to the manor born: the real thing or as real as the budget would allow.
Moyer's list of designs in New York alone seems endless. He's most celebrated for the unique setting of Playwrights Horizons' Doug Wright/Michael Korie/Scott Frankel offbeat musical, Grey Gardens, which starred Christine Ebersole, winning her a Tony and Drama Desk Award, and Mary Louise Wilson, winning a Tony and a DD nomination. The musical is now in its first Asian engagement, wowing them in Japan.
Moyer has also designed, to name three, The Little Dog Laughed, The Constant Wife, and Twelve Angry Men; while also working regularly with Roundabout, MTC, Playwrights, numerous regional theaters, and quite extensively in opera. In 2006, he was honored with an Obie for Sustained Excellence.
For Grey Gardens, Moyer was Tony and Drama Desk-nominated for his set that was the height of Long Island glamour in Act One and the depth of squalor in Act Two. He says that since beginning design work in 1986, one of his biggest struggles was Gardens. "It wasn't just a challenge for me," he laughs, "but for everyone because at Playwrights and at the Kerr. There was no place to store Act Two. I had to come up with something novel." The novelty was that both sets were in place all the time. At the end of Act One, the walls had to be turned - by hand.
"The walls were propped up from behind," he explains. "At the interval, stagehands would break them apart piece by piece and flip. Before we even got everything assembled at Playwrights, I knew intermission would have to be stretched a bit. It was really bad the first time. It took 30 minutes. It was like going to the opera!"
When the time was reduced to 19 minutes, he and the crew felt they were "getting there. By the time the show was running a couple of weeks, it was down to a very manageable 12 minutes."
To achieve Act Two's squalid look, the set was piled high with garbage, old newspapers, and empty cat-food cans. "Everyone brought their empty cans. Then there was the process of sanitizing them, to avoid a vermin problem, and painting them to look older. I've found that there's a place you can go for just about anything, but I never thought I'd find one to purchase new empty cans."
He was delighted to know that After Miss Julie director Mark Brokaw wanted a very authentic set even for a production that would have a limited engagement. "Authentic is a magic word for me," he smiles. "I went for it full steam."
At Roundabout, states Moyer, "When I ask for something, they know I feel it's important. The After Miss Julie set is quite elaborate and quite expensive, but I got what I needed to make that kitchen look like it actually is a working one in a grand manor house."
Even the sound of walking across Julie's's stage at the American Airlines Theater had to be authentic, "and faking it wouldn't cut it for me. I was so tired of seeing fake stone floors. It had to be the real thing. I also wanted the floor elevated four inches. When the bids came back, it would have been as much as 40 percent of my budget, so the limestone was simply laid over the stage floor. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. We had to bring in stoneworkers to do the grouting. As it turned out, we have a rise of almost two inches."
Moyer does windows authentically, too. "I didn't want plastic! If you use Plexiglass, which is what we usually do, and you have light coming through, the light is not the same. Glass is the way to go. The windows in a stately home built in the 1860s would have used glazed glass, and that's what I wanted -- and got."
The gigantic work table was built from scratch, based on meticulous research. The dinner China is Spode. "No short cuts there or on the cutlery." You also may notice that the After Miss Julie, sets don't stop, but continue to various rooms off stage.
"I wanted Sienna Miller, Johnny Lee Miller and Marin Ireland to feel as it they were going to the actual rooms. That provides a sense of scenic continuity. When Sienna and Johnny Lee told me that they feel so at home on the set, that gave me a great sense of satisfaction."
In addition to having your imagination working when you read a script, says Moyer, "You have to know how to shop around, but you can't always find what you need in a shop." Case in point is his pride and joy in Julie, the magnificent iron range where Ireland is seen cooking.
"It was found in England at a salvage company. It was solidly bolted together and we had to take it apart for shipping over in a container. It was very expensive, but that was something I really wanted that I couldn't find here. It's a beauty and looks like it belongs at Miss Julie's estate."
Moyer has his eye on that range. At the end of After Miss Julie's run, he hopes Roundabout will make the price right so he can purchase it.
Almost every Broadway house has very limited load-in doors, "so the very first thing you have to do is take three confirmed measurements. Then the set pieces arrive in sections and are assembled onstage. Since you don't want it to look like a jigsaw puzzle, your crew has to paint over the seams so that to the audience's eye it's seamless."
