“Here Lies Love boasts the talents of David Korins, Clint Ramos, Justin Townsend, and M.L.Dogg & Cody Spencer, all at the top of their games.”
— Deadline
“Peter Nigrini’s psychedelic projections, which frequently morph into historical photos of Imelda, surround you on all sides.”
— New York Stage Review
DESIGN
BEST Scenic Design
David Korins
HERE LIES LOVE is an example of an entire creative team coming together to accomplish something that has literally never been done before: the first ever 360-degree, fully immersive Broadway design, with a large part of the audience moving in and amongst the action, transforming seamlessly from funerals to weddings, from rallies to riots. We completely transformed the Broadway Theater, taking all of the seats out of the mezzanine and building a brand new stage floor all the way from the upstage wall of the theater straight out to the lobby.
I’ve designed over 26 Broadway shows, and this was by far the most complicated, integrating 38 individually permitted ground plans with the city of New York, fulfilling all the life, safety, and ADA regulations, and spending thousands of hours with architects and engineers. We took over 60,000 pounds of steel, thousands of linear feet of lighting, and hundreds of linear feet of projection surfaces, wrapping it all the way around one of New York’s biggest theatres, completely redefining what it meant to have a set on Broadway.
— David Korins
Creating the World of Here Lies Love
Broadway Theatre Time-Lapse
BEST COSTUME Design
CLINT RAMOS
Designing the over 200 costumes for HERE LIES LOVE was not only an exercise that spanned more than a decade, but a product of steady and abiding collaboration. Collaboration with David Byrne, Alex Timbers, Annie-B Parson, the entire design team and the actors. It was also an exercise in culture — both 20th century Filipino culture but also the American culture as seen through performance and the spectacle of disco and dance clubs. With Imelda’s track leading the charge, the 20 costumes had to span a time span from the 1940s to the 1980s and her voracious consumption of couture and luxury. One of the most inspirational facets of the costume design is the celebration of the Filipino national dress as seen through the butterfly sleeves and also the exuberant club outfits to create theatrical spectacle. Although my favorite part of the design is the contrast between “party and excess” and the “ordinariness of the common man.” I am most proud of how we, as a team, were able to create an exuberant celebration, a party, as a metaphor for the mass hypnosis caused by a charismatic tyranny and how, in the end, we were able to turn the party off to make clear that the people have awakened and the revolution has triumphed, blurring the lines between a theatre and the performance of politics.
— Clint Ramos
BEST LIGHTING Design
JUSTIN TOWNSEND
The lighting of HERE LIES LOVE is completely unique in a 360 immersive experience on Broadway. Technically alone it was a giant challenge to make a huge unparalleled lighting machine tell the story for multiple points of view and seating locations. But most importantly the lighting made the art and the storytelling soar.
The lighting moves and articulates the many worlds and ideas requiring both the precision of a watch and the boldness and muscularity of the rising dictators and then the power of the people.
The lighting design brings the audience into a party, seducing them and enveloping them only to crack open the world around them to let clear daylight stream in.
— Justin Townsend
BEST SOUND Design
Cody Spencer & M.L. DOGG
HERE LIES LOVE was the first time audiences on Broadway were truly immersed in sound. With the use of many speakers in multiple zones, we were able to give the audience a truly immersive experience. Wether it was helping the standing audience on the floor know which way to look by sourcing the actors 360º around the audience or getting the seated balcony to feel like they were part of the disco by encompassing them in sound. What we were able to accomplish on Here Lies Love we feel will be what the future of sound on Broadway is, a truly immersive sound experience when it comes to the sonic quality of shows.”
— Cody Spencer/M.L. Dogg
