--- title: Inside the Art Studio That Brings Broadway Shows to Life description: Putting on a Broadway musical requires an army of talent. Here's a look at how artists created the detailed set for the Carousel revival canonical: https://time.com/5271110/broadway-show-carousel-set-artists/ author: Eben Shapiro article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-05-10T18:52:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T09:09:30.070Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Inside the Art Studio That Brings Broadway Shows to Life og:description: See how the set of Carousel was created og:url: https://time.com/5271110/broadway-show-carousel-set-artists/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f08240d09529d5e/6989301b7cdbac2058d5cd42/carousel-revival-set-design.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1920 og:image:height: 1080 og:image:alt: Painters work on set piece for Carousel revival og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Inside the Art Studio That Brings Broadway Shows to Life twitter:description: See how the set of Carousel was created twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5f08240d09529d5e/6989301b7cdbac2058d5cd42/carousel-revival-set-design.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Inside the Art Studio That Brings Broadway Shows to Life > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: The Backdrop Takes Center Stage [Watch (HLS stream): The Backdrop Takes Center Stage](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/NquYfz3Z.m3u8) (2:19)  _Published 2018-05-07. Artists at Scenic Arts Studio create the backdrops for many of the shows on Broadway, including this season's Carousel._ by [Eben Shapiro](https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/) and [Julia Lull](https://time.com/author/julia-lull/) Eben Shapiro is the former deputy editor of TIME May 10, 2018 6:52 PM UTC Artists at Scenic Arts Studio create the backdrops for many of the shows on Broadway, including this season's Carousel. by [Eben Shapiro](https://time.com/author/eben-shapiro/) and [Julia Lull](https://time.com/author/julia-lull/) Eben Shapiro is the former deputy editor of TIME May 10, 2018 6:52 PM UTC Putting on a Broadway musical requires an army of talent. People that can play the oboe. Carpenters. People that can expertly sing and dance while effortlessly picking up and twirling another person that can also expertly sing and dance. People that have achieved world renown for their ability to point, shade and filter spotlights to create the mood of Parisian river banks or African savannas. And behind them all, hangs the work of one of the smallest and most specialized of the theatrical guilds, the Broadway scene painters. Many of the backdrops are produced by the team of artists at Scenic Art Studios, who work out of a 15,000-square-foot space in the 1830s Regal Bag brick warehouse on the shores of the Hudson River in Newburgh, N.Y. During the winter, the artists watch bald eagles float by on ice floes. The workshop is a sanctuary for formerly starving artists: Each day, the company sends a car to to pick up the four employees from Brooklyn who take the 7:55 a.m. from Grand Central to Beacon and drive them across the Beacon-Newburgh Bridge for a day of painting, before returning them in time to catch the 4:05 p.m. back to the city. The enormous space is filled with an arsenal of squeegees, brooms and custom-built tools for applying paint to backdrops. And stacks of gallon cans of Rosco Paints, the set designer’s paint of choice. Off Broadway is one of the firm’s most popular colors. The standard drop for a Broadway theater is roughly 30 feet by 50 feet, not quite tennis court size, but big. A major Broadway musical requires as many as a dozen different painted scenes and must be completed on a tight time frame — weeks, not months. To become a full-fledged scene painter, you must undergo a rigorous battery of tests to gain admission to United Scenic Artists Local US 829, “the representative voice of designers and scenic artists.” Under the guidance of Tony- winning designer Santo Loquasto, the crew recently finished up the painted backdrops for Carousel, a revival of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s 1945 classic starring Jessie Mueller. Joseph Forbes, owner of Scenic Arts, assigned Irina Portnyagina as lead painter of the Carousel set because of her facility for painting sky and clouds. She has developed a technique that uses copious amounts of water, mixed with the paint. “Water finds its way,” she says, working with a puddle behind her squeegee. “You have to have confidence, not fear.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] The traditional role of the back drop in the theatre is to do the one thing you can't do which is create the illusion of depth. And that's the brilliance of well painted back drop, that's what we get asked to do. Scenic Arts Studios is a professional scene painting company. We primarily paint scenery for the broadway stage, specializing in And back drops. We primarily paint with dye so the first thing we do is starch the entire drop. When you back light it, it gets the dye luminescence like a stain glass window. And it's just a layering process. You start with a base coat and the preliminary colors And then you add detail and refinement and layer upon layer upon layer. [ MUSIC ] We do a lot of musicals. The 42 shows on Broadway, we are represented in 37 of them. For us it's all about the designer. [ UNKNOWN ] Is the designer for, [ UNKNOWN ] And he has a very unique style. Our job is to try and put his imagines on the stage as faithfully as we possibly can and that represents the biggest challenge. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Particularly with a musical like Carousel, your never really locked into one place there's this movement between worlds. So there's a very fine balancing act that happened in the backdrops. Depending on what the scene is it can function as different things. It can be very solid and concrete Or it can be very airy and sky and distant. You go to the theater to see life. To see things that are created by human beings. There's a life and a vibrance to a painted image that you can't get any other way. And audiences respond to it. 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