Oscar show designer chosen
David Rockwell crafted the current home of the Academy Awards show. Now he gets to jump in on Hollywood’s big night itself.
Rockwell will be production designer for the Oscar show Feb. 22, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Thursday.
The 52-year-old architect, who has also handled the set design for “Hairspray,” “Legally Blonde” and other Broadway productions, joins a team of fresh faces overseeing the 81st Oscar show, led by producer Laurence Mark and executive producer Bill Condon, filmmakers working on the ceremony for the first time.
The ceremony is in the early planning stages and nominations will not be announced until Jan. 22, but Rockwell had one early prediction.
“I think we’ll see things never seen before at the Oscars,” Rockwell said. “One of the things about the Oscars is there are such thrilling possibilities. It is one of the great kind of communal rituals of the entire world.”
His firm, New York City-based Rockwell Group, designed the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the venue for the Oscar show since 2001.
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