Broadway By Design: David Korins & Paul Tazewell Bring HAMILTON from Page to Stage

Who is Annie without her red dress? Or Eva with out her balcony? It is the charge of the Broadway designer to transport the audience into the world of a show, whether it be Great Depression-era New York City or outside of the Casa Rosada.

In our new series, Broadway by Design, BroadwayWorld will be shining a spotlight on the stellar designs of this Broadway season, show by show. Today, we continue the series with Tony nominees David Korins and Paul Tazewell, who acted as scenic and costume designers for Broadway's smash hit, HAMILTON.

HAMILTON is the story of America's Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who became George Washington's right-hand man during the Revolutionary War and was the new nation's first Treasury Secretary. Featuring a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, blues, rap, R&B, and Broadway, HAMILTON is the story of America then, as told by America now.

Korins explains: "When I got the job designing the set for Hamilton, I first felt enormously honored to be a part of this talented creative team, comprised of all previous collaborators of mine. Second came the overwhelming responsibility for creating the environment for Lin's magnificent text and score, allowing the audience to focus on the intricacies of the narrative without getting caught up in the scenic spectacle.

The piece tells the story of a group of people laying the foundation upon which America would be built, and the set serves as a visual representation of this idea. We dug into research, developing a visual vocabulary of period appropriate materials, textures, and construction methodologies. We discovered that nearly all of the carpenters at the time were immigrant shipbuilders, so we incorporated pulleys, ropes, and historically accurate joints and fasteners into the design details. It is an aspirational space, using an unfinished, period-appropriate construction aesthetic to create an environment ripe with possibility."

"I was also struck with the circular movement inherent to the show - from the literal hurricane that devastated his homeland to his tempestuous relationships with his political nemeses to his cyclical relationship with Burr. The turntable physicalizes both the cinematic nature of the show and the whirling nature of Hamilton's story."

What was the most difficult part about designing HAMILTON? Korins continues: "The biggest challenge was figuring out how to represent each of the many locations onstage without overloading the show with unnecessary scenery. Across nearly 3 hours, 30 years and 46 musical numbers, Hamilton takes us from interior spaces to battlefields all around New York City without missing a single beat. We could have tried to literally render each place onstage, but that would have meant pausing for extensive changes - the set needed to be able to whisk us from location to location, supporting each one with a few select props or pieces, without halting the piece's explosive energy."

"I am especially proud of the ways each theatrical element - writing, choreography, costumes, scenery, sound design - work in total lock step with each other to keep that momentum hurtling throughout the show. This is most evident in the ways we mark the passage of time across the piece: the set slowly becomes more "finished" (the back brick walls grow an extra 8', rugged hand tools and guns hanging on the walls are replaced with maps and China) while each character's dress becomes more stately and refined, their choreographic vocabulary evolves, and the musical and lyrical styles mature as the characters grow up."

On his costumes, Tazewell explains: "My inspiration for the costume design for HAMILTON was quite varied. It was a mash up of historical period research of the Revolutionary war, 18th Century fashion, the American forefathers, and Contemporary fashion."

He continues: "The challenge was finding the perfect balance between the real life historic personas and the style of Lin's writing. How to design the clothing in order to feel both period and contemporary at the same time. The other challenge was to conceive of the costume design to be able to accommodate the level of extreme movement within the choreography as if the ensemble was wearing T-shirts, jeans and sneakers and not period silhouettes."

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The cast of Hamilton is comprised of Lin-Manuel Miranda (Alexander Hamilton),Daveed Diggs (Marquis De Lafayette,Thomas Jefferson), Renée Elise Goldsberry(Angelica Schuyler), Christopher Jackson (George Washington), Rory O'Malley (King George), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Peggy Schuyler, Maria Reynolds), Javier Muñoz (Hamilton alternate), Okieriete Onaodowan(Hercules Mulligan, James Madison), Leslie Odom, Jr. (Aaron Burr), Anthony Ramos (John Laurens, Philip Hamilton) and Phillipa Soo (Eliza Hamilton).

With book, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, direction by Thomas Kail, choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler and musical direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire, Hamiltonis based on Ron Chernow's biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.