For the VMAs 40th anniversary milestone, our concept was to create an unforgettable fusion of nostalgia, modernity, and spectacle.

The visual centerpiece of the design is a towering 60’ tall Moon Person, emerging from a video wall and reaching into the room as if stepping out of the digital world and into the physical, metaphorically referring to the event itself and the connection between its history and future. The over-sized MTV figure has also served as a canvas for projection mapping, showcasing clips and iconic moments of the ceremony’s four decades.

This transformation from digital to reality, from screen to stage, encapsulates the overall theme of the anniversary show—a celebration of the past while looking to the future.

This year’s layout broke new ground with four distinct stages, each providing a unique perspective and energy for both performers and the audience. The main stages consisted of two side-by-side stages, each 60’ wide and 40’ deep, anchored along the length of the arena. Both stages featured expansive video backing walls, setting the tone for an immersive visual experience. Positioned at the heart of the arena was an intimate central fan stage that emerged from a thrust under the Moon Person, creating an interactive space where the crowd’s energy converges. Finally, our Fandom Stage, surrounded by tiers of audience members, was a massive 24’x16’ lift that raised up from below revealing artists and rising 19’ to create a powerful performance space in the room.

This design was inspired by many things: a moon reflecting on water… a sunset over the horizon… the circle of a theater spotlight… an abstraction of the mind… a ‘cherry on top’. We wanted to create something as warm and textured as the sounds in the Honeymind album, complete with the dueling harmony of stability and change that is so present in the album. This was represented by a center circle of shag that flowed down the bandstand and onto stage, providing a cozy, stable area for performance. I paired this with a textured, glowing circle that tracked across the stage, sinking low for tender moments and soaring above during triumphant songs… becoming a sort of visual representation of emotion throughout. Anchored always, but ever-changing.

Since we reopened the historic Palace Theatre, we kept the stage open and bare around the set, letting the audience see every nook and cranny of the newly restored theater, including backstage.

Artist: Ben Platt
Director: Michael Arden
Lighting Design: Ben Stanton

The concept for this year’s NBCUniversal Upfront design was to capture a modern abstraction of the curved shape created when the iconic gold curtain at Radio City is tabbed open. Details of strong, operatic architecture that both complements and stands its ground within the massive venue.

The “Hero Wall” is the single most important piece of any Upfront design. It’s where the upcoming network content and movie trailers are shown to excite the audience and create energy in the room. I wanted to fully integrate the hero wall into the set design and make it a character throughout the show. I pitched a wild idea… let’s split the hero wall in half, track it back and forth across the stage to create different compositions, and then seamlessly fuse it together live in front of the audience for our hero content moments. Our fearless producers not only agreed, but leaned into the idea and let us run with it! Was it a risk? Yes. Was it worth it? Hell yes. Thank you to TAIT for accepting the automation challenge, taking all our nearly impossible requests in stride, and even developing new low-profile seaming mechanisms to give us that perfect, clean look. Beyond.

The CineVita is a space that takes audiences back to the golden age of Hollywood, to a movie cinema with no screen where the movies come to life in a 360 degree world. Impeccably crafted in the ateliers of the Rik Klessens Family in Malle, Belgium over the past 3 years, this mobile spiegeltent (Dutch for “mirror tent”) is a not only the largest in the world, but is considered the ‘crown jewel’ of the family’s 104 year history building these incredible traveling structures. Designing this space was truly an honor and a process I will never forget. I spent many hours finding the careful balance of designing an environment that was nostalgic for another time and didn’t feel stuck in the past, all while honoring the history and principles of the European spiegeltent craft.

Venue Design by @steindesign_inc
Lighting Design @innovativeintensityinc
Crafted by the genius Rik Klessens and his family.

The CineVita is currently by Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles until June 2025, and will be touring North America thereafter.

The production design for the VMAs was conceived by imagining what a world would look like if audio waves ripped through the arena and sculpted the environment. The iconic 35’ tall Moon Person helmet appears as if the power of sound was so intense that it carved its waves into the metal, etching an entirely new version of the distinctive MTV award. The chrome Moon Person’s visor appears to be shaped by equalizer bars frozen in time, creating a central portal from which the celebrity presenters emerged. Arcing over the Moon Person sculpture is a video installation designed to evoke the movement of audio waves through the air, visually connecting the 2 performance stages anchored at opposite ends of the arena. Both performance stages feature LED floors and massive bi-parting LED walls with integrated lighting, intermixing the 2 media as if audio waves left their indelible mark as they flowed through the space.

Art Department Credits:

* Matt Steinbrenner - Production Designer

* Kristen Merlino - Supervising Art Director

* John Zuiker - Performance Art Director

* Ellen Jaworski - Performance Art Director

* Lex Gernon - Assistant Art Director

* Gloria Lamb - Art Director

I'm honored to have served as the set designer of a new theatrical, multi-media experience as part of the National WWII Museum Liberation Pavilion Expansion in New Orleans, LA.

The Priddy Family Foundation Freedom Theater on the third floor of Liberation Pavilion offers audiences a multimedia experience focused on what was at stake during World War II and the meaning of Allied victory. The production, developed by The Hettema Group, highlights how freedom almost vanished from the world in the 1930s and 1940s, efforts to protect and promote freedom during and after World War II, and how each generation has a responsibility to defend democracy, protect freedom, and advance human rights. At a pivotal moment in the show, the theater audience platform itself rotates.

https://youtu.be/bmyturGaJtA

Opry100: A Live Celebration on @nbc @peacock. Celebrating the past 100 years while looking forward to the next 100, the design embraced the undeniably iconic barn backdrop that is inseparable from the Opry stage. Expanding outward from this backdrop, I designed video walls that followed the primary shape of the barn. These served a dual purpose - both the feeling of growth and expanse, and also serving as a sort of 'hall of memories' in which historical images could be shown while modern day artists performed, blending the past and present live on stage. The bandstand was designed to unify the geometric lines from the back wall with the radiating circle from the embedded portion of the Ryman stage at center.

Also as part of the Opry100 celebration, we honored the early home of the Grand Ole Opry -- the famed Ryman Auditorium. My design for this portion of the show was really an homage to the origins of this venue. In its early days, the Ryman had no proscenium - the balcony extended all the way to the back wall, which had stained glass windows within it. The audience could sit in the balcony in what is now the wings of the stage. To recreate this, we fabricated scenic extensions of the balcony that reached upstage and terminated at a line of floating windows... impressions of what once was. We outfitted the stage with a circular floor piece with a glowing edge, mimicking the circle of embedded Ryman stage floor at the Opry House today.

Client: Netflix

Producer: EverWonder Studio

‘Torching 2024: A Roast of the Year’ was a celebration and (fond?) farewell to a year that was one for the record books! We designed and executed this set in 2 weeks, along with being the first major TV special to be broadcast from the Bellwether in Los Angeles.

My design for the inaugural Comcast Converge event helped transform the Comcast Technology Center in downtown Philadelphia. The space offered some interesting design challenges including vertical and slanted columns flanking the stage space, no meaningful available rigging, and the main audience access being backstage left and right on stage level. Working with the features of the venue, I designed column surrounds that blended with the design of the room and included integrated video strips. Clean crisp mirror walls covered the slanted columns in the room and reflected the large curved LED wall at the center, expanding the stage vista for the audience while providing proper egress for the audience before and after the event thru integrated archways.

Production Design for NBC Universal Upfront at Radio City Music Hall. May 2023

Set in a derelict movie theater, the tattered cinema screen was the perfect textured backdrop to our stage. We embedded lights behind the cinema screen, allowing energy to burst through the tears and front projected onto the screen fragments to show time and place throughout the show. Scaffolding on either side of the cinema screen indicated a paused renovation, giving way to a disintegrating mess of scaff pipe that blended the set with the industrial theater space. The scenes within the show were created using minimal set pieces that could transform with lighting to become vehicles, a diner table, a texas honky tonk bar, etc.

Tasked with creating an F18 on stage for a Top Gun inspired creative, I designed 2 massive F18 afterburners that paired with virtual imagery of the jet in the screens, allowing the audience to fly thru terrain as if they were a fixed camera on the back of the fighter jet. A fun one for @onerepublic ! Still whistling 😗 Set fabrication by @unbranded_bv Screens by @hellocharliehq Lighting by @dx7design

Stand By You

Starring Miley Cyrus

Celebrating Pride 2021 for Peacock

Produced by @denofthievestv

Production Design by @steindesign_inc

Lighting Design by @dx7design

Art Direction by @jstoscho

Set Construction by @atomicdesigninc

Theater Renovation and Theatrical Show Design

Venue: The Palazzo Theatre at the Palazzo Resort, Las Vegas

Producers: For the Record Live + The Venetian Entertainment Group

I had a great time designing the dance club setting for the finale of Nicki Minaj’s 2022 VMA Vanguard Performance

Theatrical Show Design

Venue: The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills CA

Producers: For the Record Live + The Wallis

Love Actually Live was a truly unique theatrical cinematic experience. Unlike a traditional film screening, we created a dynamic three dimensional world comprised of projection screens that moved in and out throughout the show. By interweaving the original beloved film with live actors and musicians on stage, we were able to seamlessly transition from scene to scene while the audience followed the film, and action, around the stage.

I’m honored to have worked with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and The Dolby Theater to design ‘The Winner’s Walk’. The Winner’s Walk is a ceremonial corridor that every Oscar winner walks through directly after exiting the stage with their coveted statue. This is a permanent renovation that will add to the continuing legacy of the Academy Awards and The Dolby Theater.

Venue: Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills

Producers:  For the Record Live + The Wallis

Co-Scenic Designer: Kyle Courter

Winner, 2016 Broadway World Award for Best Scenic Design 

I had the honor of designing the 75th Annual Directors Guild of America Awards, honoring the biggest names in Hollywood for their work as Directors, ADs and Stage Managers on your favorite films and television shows. Hosted by Judd Apatow. Venue: Beverly Hilton. I worked with a tight budget and very tight 1 day load-in to design a set that was simple, classic and contemporary.

Venue: The Escape, Norwegian Cruise Lines

Producers: For the Record Live + NCL Entertainment

Venue: The Long Center, Austin TX

Producers: For the Record Live

Television Production Design

Venue: The Dolby Theatre, Hollywood

Producers: Great Performances / PBS

Live at The Apollo. Incredible talent on an iconic stage, back in 2021 year with a live audience. We used hundreds of candles on stage to create a sacred, ceremonial space… a reverent celebration of our ability to gather together once again.

Venue: Apollo Theatre

Producer: For the Record

Lighting Design: Michael Berger

Load-in time window was 4 hours on the day of the show.

Photos: Jenny Anderson + Michael Hull

Genre: Concept Artwork / Storyboards

Venue: Shanghai Corporate Pavilion,  World Expo 2010

Venue: LIGHT at Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas

Producers: For the Record Live + Cirque Du Soleil Theatricals