Tonywatch: Clint Ramos on designing a better Broadway
The audience watching the searing and provocative “Slave Play” on Broadway often caught a glimpse of themselves onstage — in more ways than one.
That’s because set designer Clint Ramos had built giant mirrors behind the actors, who initially appear to be on a plantation in the pre-Civil War South. Ramos, as he has done hundreds of time before, wanted to pull people into the raw story being told.
“It always starts at an emotional response,” says Ramos, who is head of design and production at Fordham University. “It’s always driven by this sense to find the human.”
For that striking scenic design, Ramos
has earned one of two 2021 Tony Award nominations. He also got a nod for best costume design for “The Rose Tattoo.”
“Slave Play” director Robert O’Hara says Ramos always hopes to elevate the onstage work, scouring the script for design clues. He remembers the moment Ramos came up with the idea of mirrors.
“In talking with Clint about how we can get audience interaction — in terms of seeing themselves watching this and seeing each other watch this experience — he came up with this idea of mirrors, which was quite extraordinary,” O’Hara says.
Ramos studied both scenic and costume design at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and was initially hired primarily for costumes. Then his set designs took off, too.
“It’s never been an either/or,” he says. “I’ve always been interested in the bigger picture. What do the inhabitants of that world look like? It’s never been as siloed, as I think most people think.”
He has designed sets or costumes for hundreds of theater, opera and dance productions, including Broadway’s “Burn This” with Adam Driver and Keri Russell, “Six Degrees of Separation” with Allison Janney, “Sunday in the Park With George” with Jake Gyllenhaal and “The Elephant Man” with Bradley Cooper.
Ramos has long been an activist for an equitable landscape in theater and film for Black, indigenous and people of color. During the pandemic, he helped found Design Action, a coalition advocating for change.