Architect to design Oscar show sets
LOS ANGELES — David Rockwell crafted the current home of the Academy Awards show. Now he gets to jump in on Hollywood’s big night itself.
Rockwell will be production designer for the Oscar show on Feb. 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday.
The 52-year-old architect, who has also handled the set design for “Hairspray,” “Legally Blonde” and other Broadway productions, joins a team of fresh faces overseeing the 81st Oscar show, led by producer Laurence Mark and executive producer Bill Condon, filmmakers working on the ceremony for the first time.
“David is an innovator who possesses the outstanding combination of truly firsthand knowledge of the Kodak Theatre and superb design work in a variety of realms, including film and theater,” said Mark and Condon in a joint statement.
Also new to the telecast is producer Roger Goodman, vice president of special projects at ABC. Goodman, a multiple Emmy winner who will direct ABC’s presidential inauguration coverage a month before the Oscars, has many major sporting events, news programs and awards shows to his credit, including the Academy Awards Countdown Show.
The ceremony is in the early planning stages and nominations will not be announced until Jan. 22, but Rockwell had one early prediction about the show.
“I think we’ll see things never seen before at the Oscars,” Rockwell said. “One of the things about the Oscars is there are such thrilling possibilities. It is one of the great kind of communal rituals of the entire world.”
