半岛体育

How do you dress a robot? Or make a ship sink onstage? Or make George Clooney stand out in a sea of gray suits? These were some of the many challenges that this year's Tony-nominated designers faced. 

Below, this year's Tony-nominated creatives speak with 半岛体育 about the biggest challenges they faced in their respective shows鈥攁nd their eureka moments. Here are the most illuminating answers, from shows such as Oh, Mary! and Maybe Happy Ending.

And, be sure to browse through the various set and costume design renderings from the various Tony-nominated shows below.

Maybe Happy Ending Costume Designer Clint Ramos

"One of the hardest nuts [to crack] was really getting Helen [J Shen]'s costume right. There's a lot of layers into this particular [HelperBot] model. They're more human, they have sarcasm, irony, all of that. I think once we figured out that, 'Oh, she could have pulled some clothes from her owners,' it all clicked."

Swept Away Set Designer Rachel Hauck

The most thrilling part of the show: "When that boat is on stage, and the audience comes in and sees a boat in the middle of the theatre, like a whole boat, they're stunned. And then these guys start climbing all over it, and for the life of you, you believe you're on the open ocean. That is thrilling. And those guys who climb those lines all day are incredible. And it's a thrill to sink the ship. It's really fun to sink the ship."

Good Night, and Good Luck Costume Designer Brenda Abbandandolo

"The most challenging thing was the look is so ubiquitous. It's all these office guys in the '50s, and it's hard to delineate what would pull them apart. So it's just really, like, how to create character in a very, very narrow box. The ties gave me a lot of freedom and the fits and the pieces, and adding and taking away鈥攁nd who would have vests, sweater vests. So once we sort of got the flow of the show, I could see how each moment would happen."

John Proctor Is the Villain Sound Designer Palmer Hefferan

"The transitions were tricky because we were moving around who were we focusing on鈥攚hich group, which individual. There's 16 transitions, and so, it's kind of this purging of art to get to the final thing. And when we got to the first pass at the play, [director Danya Taymor] told me, 'The music is more incredible than I could have dreamt.' And that was such an amazing validation going into final dress...I went to high school 20 plus years ago, so really diving into what is that youth culture now, it made me feel so connected to young people."

Maybe Happy Ending Lighting Designer Ben Stanton

"If you've seen the show, you know that the set is constantly moving and rearranging. There's all of these small boxes that shift side to side, walls appear and disappear. Iris portals condense and expand. And so, each new setup was sort of, like, a puzzle we had to solve, especially for the lighting design, because we didn't always have all the tools at our disposal. There were places we couldn't put lights鈥攖here was, you know, ceilings and walls and things in our way. And so we had to redefine a little bit how you light a Broadway musical, and I think that's actually why it looks so unique."

Just in Time Orchestrator Andrew Resnick

"I think the overall challenge was we have 11 players, which is really generous in normal Broadway terms, but in terms of the old big bands, they would have 30 people on, like, strings. So how do we use these players and really create that type of sound? We just had to get very creative."

Oh, Mary! Costume Designer Holly Pierson

The hardest costume she designed for Oh, Mary!: "There's a scene between Mary and her teacher. And specifically with costumes, we weren't quite sure who the teacher was. And we kind of landed on him being a Disney prince. And that's how the scene really came together for me. That really sold the romance for sure."

Picture of Dorian Gray Set and Costume Designer Marg Horwell

On designing costumes that can be easily taken on and off onstage: "They're, like, horrific puzzles. Because Sarah [Snook] is speaking the whole time when she's changing, we can't use anything that makes noise or anything that goes over her head, or it'll block her face. It's a lot of hard work to be able to make it feel effortless. And we changed them and changed them and changed them to try and get them to function really well. But some of them have backs removed, and then there's things that magnet onto other things, and things that are all sewn together so they come off as one piece. And Sarah is doing one change that you can't actually see, where someone's changing her trousers while she's giving a monologue. So it really feels like a huge undertaking, especially for Sarah, but for the whole team鈥攊t's kind of an exhilarating performance to do every night."