Miniature theaters show the set designs of Allen Moyer in Albright College's Freedman Gallery. PHOTOS BY LINDSEY SHUEY
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on January 31, 2022.
READING — There was no single day when Allen Moyer decided to become a Broadway set designer.
“When you’re 20 years old or 18 years old, you expect there to be that day,” Moyer said. “I think it’s wrong to look for that day. If it doesn’t happen, you shouldn’t feel like you’re missing part of the process.”
Moyer, a Schuylkill Haven native, appeared Sunday at Albright College to celebrate the grand opening of an art exhibit celebrating his career.
Allen Moyer.
“Confronting the Empty Space: The Stage Designs of Allen Moyer,” on display in Albright’s Freedman Gallery until April 15, shows sketches and models of sets and costumes that Moyer designed for the Broadway and opera stage.
He believes that his Schuylkill roots subconsciously influenced his set designs, which play with color, shape, angles and negative space.
“Nobody can separate from where they grew up,” he said. “You do draw on your own personal experiences to sort of fill those gaps, and plan a way to go with this. It’s a jumble in my head.”
In an interview with Jeffrey Lentz, the artist in residence at Albright, Moyer said that he thinks of his intricate sketches and miniature theaters as tools, rather than works of art.
“It’s not like just looking at a painting,” he said. “You can look at and appreciate this beautiful object, but it’s about looking at the design. That’s what jazzes me.”
Moyer originally majored in biochemistry at Albright, but after his “very advanced” biology classes at Blue Mountain High School, Moyer was bored with the subject. He was more interested in his German drama class.
“I really loved reading plays,” he said, “and I decided I wanted to do something else. I wanted to be a set designer or director.”
After two years, Moyer transferred to Penn State, where he earned a bachelor’s degree, and then graduated with a master’s degree from New York University. His first Broadway set design gig was “Tartuffe” in 1996. Thirteen shows later, he compares the experience to “Lord of the Flies.”
“It’s not for everybody,” he said, “certainly not for the faint of heart. When there’s that much money at stake, and people predisposed to bad behavior, you’re gonna get the worst.”
Moyer’s designs are inspired by the play or opera he is adapting. Theater is an “interpretive” art — Moyer’s ideas are interpretations of someone else’s words and music.
“Music in many ways is a lot more objective than a lot of things,” he said. “When you get to Strauss or Puccini, you can’t fight with it. … You can tell when you see an opera or a musical and think, ‘That designer is musical.’ ”
A Moyer-designed set for the opera "Carmen."
Moyer works harder when he’s designing the set for a play he doesn’t like. He calls it “overcompensating.”
“All plays have their distinct personality,” he said, “and all deserve your attention. Some are bad, and that’s what makes them unique.”
One of Moyer’s biggest challenges was designing a “shocking” nontraditional set for the opera “La Boheme.”
“ ‘La Boheme’s third act is a piece of perfection,” he said. “It’s like a perfect diamond. There’s not a note extra.”
Moyer decided to set the opening of the third act in a train station, representing the characters parting ways and the worsening condition of Mimi, the tubercular heroine.
“I just wanted a moment where there was a huge cold piece of machinery, a locomotive,” he said. “I wanted (Mimi) to be in a place where something was crushing her: the locomotive.”
Inspiration also comes from the people whom Moyer has met over the years. They are not only his artistic partners, but his friends. Moyer loves that theater is a collaborative art form. He warmly recalls the cheering crowds at the Metropolitan Opera in New York tearing up their programs and using them as confetti.
“There’s something about being in a room and experiencing — with 1,000, 2,000 people — the same event,” he said. “That is an important part of being an empathetic person. You’re all experiencing the same thing … it’s part of being a human being.”
It brings him back to his childhood in Schuylkill Haven, when he sat around the TV with his family watching “The Carol Burnett Show.”
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