Scenic Designer Mark Wendland Leads Us on a Walking Tour of Off-Broadway’s Murder Ballad
(© David Gordon)
At the northeast corner of Union Square stands the Union Square Theatre, a performance space within a building with a unique history. Where audience members now mingle with Caissie Levy, Will Swenson, Rebecca Naomi Jones, and John Ellison Conlee in the sexy mystery musical Murder Ballad, politicians used to gather under the guise Tammany Hall.
“The thing that made this specifically a unique experience was that you have to incorporate the room,” Wendland said. “We looked at a couple of venues, and each had to be completely reimagined. We didn’t want to hide the room. It was [about] finding what was already unique about this space. This theater has a sense of history, so it was about enhancing that history.”
Church pews intermingle with wicker seats and traditional auditorium chairs in rows on a specially constructed playing space that replaces the stage. The theater’s gorgeous chandelier now hangs lower over the action, while the mezzanine is off-limits. The actors run, jump, and dance all over the place, which really does bear a striking resemblance as a Lower East Side bar. They had five weeks to renovate the theater, before which the plan had to be approved by an architect and New York City. “The whole deck had to be built by a contractor so it could have the right architectural approval,” Wendland noted, adding that the room also needed two wheelchair ramps, railings, and four fire exits.
Just prior to the show’s off-Broadway reopening, Wendland, a Tony Award nominee for his work on the recent Broadway productions of The Merchant of Venice and Next to Normal, took us on a tour of the newly configured space, and gave us the secrets behind the vivid set. It can be found in the gallery below.
The Union Square Theater, pre-renovation, with mezzanine and orchestra levels, as well as a standard proscenium stage.(© Dirk Eusterbrock)
A view of the playing space inside the Union Square Theatre.(© David Gordon)
The audience’s perspective during a performance of Murder Ballad.(© Joan Marcus)
“We figured out how to keep the MTC ground plan,” he notes of the placement of the band shell. “There’s a big air duct above where we put the band last time, so this is the exact same floor-to-ceiling ratio they had last time. The band has gotten used to being in this little cubby hole.”(© David Gordon)
“When we did it at MTC,” Wendland begins, “I remember one of the last run-throughs where [sound designer] Leon Rothenberg and I were talking about the budget, and he was like “The floor all seems to be found lumber!” and I was like “Leon, you’ve got to be kidding me.” He was like “What do you mean? It looks like stuff they found off the street,” and I was like “Thank you! I love you! You’re my new best friend!” (© David Gordon)
“Sometimes what you’re looking for is right where you left it…that tagline,” says Wendland, laughing. “This combination, a Reese Witherspoon poster with her eyes cut out next to a Coke ad, was in the East Village when this movie came out, and I’ve always had that picture and thought, “What a weird juxtaposition.” I was able to use it, finally.(© David Gordon)
“The ‘Chicken Lady’ is a big favorite of Will’s,” Wendland notes.(© David Gordon)
“This is a thing we weren’t able to afford to do at MTC,” he adds. “This is the only graffiti thing we made up. I remember at MTC thinking, ‘It would be so great if there was a map of Manhattan in the show somewhere.’ I like that there’s a scene that takes place in Central Park, and we have Central Park in it. So it’s sort of like a ‘You Are Here’ map.”(© David Gordon)
John Ellison Conlee and Caissie Levy dance on the pool table (which also doubles as a bed).(© Joan Marcus)
“Part of the fun of the show is watching the people in the middle and seeing what reactions you get. Some people are like “please don’t touch me,” but for the most part, they totally seem into being immersed.”(© Joan Marcus)
“It was a big leap to get all the additional scenic work done,” Wendland notes. “All the peeled paint is the work of a scenic artist. It took hours of work to make that paint peeling.” And it isn’t even real paint. “It’s paper,” he adds. “It’s real thin plywood that they mounted to the wall of the theater. Then they put a layer of texture to get that plaster texture underneath the paint, and then they had painted paper this blue color and glued it on, and as the glue was drying they carefully tore away little bits.”(© David Gordon)
“At one point, we were gonna do all the vinyl chairs with graffiti and that was a demo that I did. I demoed three chairs, but I decided it was better to keep this plain. But when I peeled off the demo, I liked the DED, so it remained as the ghost of an old idea. I like that there is one odd-ball [chair].”(© David Gordon)
“It’s all water,” Wendland says of the liquid that fills the prop booze bottles. “I wish it was real. It would have made tech easier.”(© David Gordon)
While there’s barroom memorabilia all around the set, few pieces have gone missing. “I know at MTC, stuff would go missing from the ledge,” Wendland says, “but how could it not? I mean, a cocktail umbrella, I’d want to take that.”(© David Gordon)
“They’re breaking the rules” [about smoking inside], Wendland says of ash trays littered around the set.(© David Gordon)
“It is funny how aware I am now of what a bartender does after doing this project and trying to figure out all the crap that they have,” Wendland says of small details on the set, like jars of cocktail onions. “Every time I go to a bar now, I try to see what goes on. “(© David Gordon)
“The chandelier was here, but we lowered it,” Wendland states about the gorgeous centerpiece of the room.(© David Gordon)
