Lady in the Dark

By Moss Hart
Music by Kurt Weill
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
Scenic design by Jimmy Stubbs
Broadhurst Theatre
Scale: 3/8” = 1’-0”

Set Design Thesis at Yale School of Drama, Spring 2022

In this 1941 musical play by Moss Hart, a celebrated fashion magazine editor starts seeing a psychoanalyst to treat her anxiety and understand the disturbing, music-filled dreams she is having.

Premiering just before the “golden age” of the American Musical, the story of an accomplished woman facing battles of mental health and questioning her own identity continues to fascinate audiences while also illuminating the complexities of female representation in the early twentieth century. Lady in the Dark is significant as well for its beguiling queerness, at once apparent and elusive, which is unique for a musical of this period (see: the title). While the piece hits differently today—the diagnosis is questionable and the unsatisfying ending doubly so—the story of a woman interrogating the pressures placed on her by men undoubtedly continues to resonate.

In this theoretical set design, completed for my MFA Thesis at the Yale School of Drama, I created a space that initially appears as a fully functional workplace, but has the fluidity to remain as an architecture for Liza’s subconscious. At first, a congested industrial labyrinth of partitions, the stage eventually opens into a Channel of larger-than-life sounds and images, akin to producing an elephant through a keyhole. Due to time constraints, I have only begun to skim the surface of Liza’s intoxicating dreams, which are so largely motivated by staging and dance. Despite my thesis already being approved, I don’t think this is the end of my relationship with this beloved piece.