- 5/24/2025
Architectural Digest steps onto the Broadway stage with George Clooney, Ilana Glazer (Shirley Wershba), and Tony Award–winning scenic designer Scott Pask to tour the set of ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’. Making his Broadway debut as legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow, Clooney revisits the powerful story of Murrow’s historic showdown with Senator Joseph McCarthy, now reimagined for the stage in a bold adaptation of his 2005 Oscar-nominated film. But how do you transform a movie into live theatre without ever shouting "cut"? From multi-story sets to seamless scene transitions, discover how Scott Pask brought this vision to life for the Broadway stage.
Good Night, and Good Luck is playing at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway through June 7th
Good Night, and Good Luck is playing at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway through June 7th
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I really do enjoy sets, and I do enjoy getting in and playing in them.
00:06I had no idea how this was going to work.
00:07It's nerve-wracking because suddenly you see how much has been invested in the thing that you wrote,
00:14and you now realize you better not screw it up, you know, along the way, and that's an important part of it.
00:27Hello, AD. I'm Ilana Glazer.
00:29And I'm Scott Pask.
00:30Welcome to our Broadway show.
00:37This show was adapted from the 2005 film by the same name that was written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov
00:43and directed by George Clooney and was nominated for six Academy Awards,
00:48and this play is directed by David Cromer.
00:51CBS News. See it now. All belong to you, Bill.
00:55I wouldn't know it.
00:56What is it you want? Credit?
00:57See it now is Edward R. Murrow's news program.
01:00The story of Good Night and Good Luck covers the bravery of Edward R. Murrow,
01:05Fred Runley, and a team of journalists who covered junior senator Joseph R. McCarthy
01:09and this sort of terrorizing that Joe McCarthy was doing to Americans
01:13to create some puritanical binary that Americans, you're either American or you're not,
01:18and it was nonsense.
01:19Until then, good night and good luck.
01:22Edward R. Murrow and his team fought for freedom of speech and true democratic thinking.
01:27And it's hard to say who won and who lost in the end.
01:32He wants me to lay a few people off.
01:34I'm sure he does.
01:35Let's do our first show about the downfall of television.
01:38There's a trick to going from a film to a Broadway show that I didn't understand until we started
01:43to write it.
01:44If I'm in a scene and in the next scene I'm in a different place, you just cut.
01:48And here you have to find a way to get actors from one set to another.
01:53Some of the interstitial pieces that we used are, we have a band up on top and we use that
01:58musically to get people from one set to another.
02:00And this is sort of the beauty of it.
02:02And I think if you see these cuts in the floor, all of these pieces of equipment come in and out
02:07and move in and out and slowly float.
02:09When we wrote the play and they said we'd be at the Winter Garden, which is a huge theater,
02:14we believed that we needed it for the space, but we didn't know how we were going to make it work.
02:19There is an elaborate model that I presented at the first rehearsal, and all of these pieces
02:23are built for scale, but then when it gets to something where it's so intricate with it,
02:27building this in real scale and having it in the room became essential for all of that,
02:31to be able to translate what that work was in the room on stage.
02:34Scott came up with this beautiful plan to make it Grand Central Station in the back
02:38and to have this walkway here and put the band up on the top.
02:41When I was a kid, my Aunt Rosemary used to sing at CBS,
02:44and so that's why it was sort of a tribute to her singing there.
02:48We're in 1954, and this world, the CBS Studios were here in Grand Central Terminal
03:00from 1929 to 1963, and it was here because they ran all the cabling underneath Lexington
03:06and up to an experimental transmitter at the top of the Chrysler building
03:10so that they could beat NBC and be the largest broadcasting studio in New York City.
03:15Hallelujah.
03:16That is true.
03:17What Scott and his team did is capture the energy of this newsroom,
03:21which was this big open space.
03:23These people would sleep there.
03:24There were rats running around, and they would throw their apple cores,
03:28and you feel the nervousness.
03:29You feel the kinetic energy of this team bouncing off each other,
03:33the messiness as we sort of almost run into each other and run the other way,
03:36and sort of the agitation of doing something brave in this space.
03:40I hope that that energy and the inspiration of how hard we're trying
03:44to give people a meaningful experience stays with them for their own fight
03:49and standing up for freedom of speech.
03:56I'm obsessed, Scott, with this IU design.
03:59It's incredible.
04:00This is our writer's room.
04:01I hand-wrote these things, which Hurricane Hazel down to the first nuke sub,
04:05and then it's all hand-painted, aged.
04:08We kind of went through a bunch of research and have been meticulous about finding restored pieces,
04:13and what's great about this space is we're in it, and we can see that we're kind of offstage,
04:18but it drifts onto the stage in a way that is so glacial,
04:21and that's my favorite thing about how this set moves.
04:24I mean, these are all, like, old chairs, right?
04:26It all feels so old, and, like, acting in this set, it just really helps hold us.
04:30A lot of them were reupholstered. They're all vintage. They're all found.
04:33This is based on a desk that we saw in our reference materials and in the research,
04:38and we had this built.
04:39This is old tile that we've then aged, but it is based on that 50s.
04:43We found a fabricator that still makes it.
04:46What we do with the painter is we come in and just sort of age it,
04:48because there are implied entrances which are here in the tape.
04:52There's a door there and a door here, and when this whole room becomes an island onstage
04:57as it's kind of hovered on this diagonal so that we're still maintaining the integrity
05:01of the architecture of the space and respecting that entrance,
05:03and it's not just everybody kind of walking off of a deck.
05:06Stacking the recording studio above the writer's room was important,
05:10but then making it have architectural sense was important,
05:12and the continuity of those spaces.
05:14So there's this pilaster here that then continues upstairs.
05:18So when this pulls away, it doesn't feel like these indistinct spaces.
05:22They're connected to each other.
05:28This is the editing station of the historical figure Millie Lerner,
05:32played by Jenny Morris.
05:33And Alana has some amazing scenes here.
05:35It's all authentic, and these are the actual editing equipment pieces,
05:39and this is the drying rack for the celluloid, and this is a real editing viewing station.
05:44So it was all kind of assembled.
05:45We've even gone measuring tape for her to be able to clip out her segments.
05:50So do you know that women were initially editors because it was likened to sewing,
05:55and then men started, like, taking over the department in the industry,
05:59and then women fought their way to get back in there.
06:02But this is when it was, like, sewing,
06:03and, like, Jenny does—this is, like, a film clipper,
06:08where you, like, set it in its track, you clip it,
06:10and you would, like, literally, before digital was an option,
06:13would, like, literally splice the film together for editing.
06:18So Jenny's doing this every night.
06:26This is the writer's bullpen.
06:27Yep.
06:27And this is where the journalists sit there.
06:30And the writer's room is actually where they're kind of meeting
06:32and figuring out the content for each story.
06:34This is where the work happens.
06:35I would say some of the best acting happens with four men alone at their desks,
06:40talking to no one, typing nonsense,
06:44but looking so focused and being so methodical in their improv.
06:49I know these are great and authentic and period,
06:51but we're also making sure that we like preserving the light temperature
06:54and glare and all of that as well.
06:56And also they light the actors' faces while not getting the audience's eyes.
06:59Exactly.
07:00I could not imagine the richness of the detail
07:05that I was going to have the privilege of playing with on stage.
07:08These newspapers are terrifying.
07:10I mean, and also how similar they are to today.
07:12Certain things that I read, I'm like,
07:14is this from the sixties or from today?
07:16It's wild.
07:17And also I sit there and like, we've aged these down.
07:19And actually I love when dings happen in the face of the desks.
07:23The more that happens, just kind of having it look real.
07:25The bullpen desks are drifting back and forth all evening.
07:28On these tracks.
07:30So sometimes my little heel will slip in a little track, you know,
07:32and I'm like, oh, nothing, nothing.
07:34Nope.
07:34I'm just in an office, you know, whatever it is.
07:36We develop the system so that magnets,
07:39so all an actor has to do is just kind of,
07:43and then it will drift with the automation.
07:49You go back in the control room back there,
07:51some of the things you see,
07:52there's a lot of really cool old trinkets,
07:54because I grew up with them.
07:55And every once in a while,
07:55you'll see just glass jars glued to the wall to look like tubes.
07:59And I like that, you know, sneaky move.
08:01Because you know, he's gone around and you know what he's done,
08:03he's like gone to someplace and gone,
08:05yeah, get these, but they don't really work.
08:07Everything about it, it's just, it's fun.
08:10Okay, this is the control room.
08:12All of this is handmade, and as George said,
08:14a lot of these things have just been pulled from instruments
08:17and things to look real from out there,
08:18but definitely dimensional.
08:20None of them work.
08:21Other stuff works, but this stuff doesn't work.
08:28A phenomenal part of this play is that we have a semi-working TV studio,
08:33where this camera actually works and films George as Edward R. Murrow.
08:37We're filming it, and it's being projected on a giant screen and a dozen small screens,
08:42so it has to look good.
08:43And our own crew, they're doing push-ins and swivels,
08:47and moving this camera and this light to actually film George in the broadcast
08:51that we broadcast out to the theater.
08:53And we have six monitors on stage that also broadcast,
08:55that we watch as the writers and producers in the control room.
08:59This is when, oh, you can't lift it, but just like cigarettes everywhere is so funny,
09:03and such a, like, yeah, it's a smoking show.
09:05It's a smoking show.
09:07People are, like, chain-smoking herbal tea.
09:10This set, to me, because I have to do so much work in it,
09:14is very special, because we really tried to recreate the actual broadcast.
09:18And, you know, here's something they've done too, which is, this is wood.
09:22It's not really the old-fashioned metal cameras.
09:26But inside here is a real digital camera.
09:29You can see the screen up there.
09:30We actually have to do real stuff with old-fashioned crops along the way.
09:34That's really exciting, and all the actors get to participate,
09:37which is also really fun.
09:38That's kind of how they did it.
09:40This was the beginning of television.
09:41That's the difficulty of what Scott's done, too, is,
09:44you know, we get to see these monitors on the outside,
09:46and you get to get a glimpse of what it really looks like if it were on television.
09:50But then you're here, and you get to see how the sausage is made,
09:54and that's the exciting part about it.
10:02So this is our second smaller set for Don Hollenbeck,
10:06the local New York news guy played by Clark Gregg.
10:09And it's another working camera.
10:11And behind the window, we have crew.
10:13And this broadcast is being shot right here.
10:15And there can be action going on in the bullpen,
10:18and we're seeing it in the proscenium.
10:20This was based on an authentic piece from the 50s.
10:23And then Stephen Davin, an artist who works in my studio, hand-painted that.
10:27The way this whole piece is made is authentic to a 1950s piece of scenery,
10:31how it would be fabricated.
10:32I'm obsessed with the floor.
10:33I love the floor, too.
10:34And I also love that you can see through underneath.
10:36And then when you move around here, it's like the authenticity of,
10:38we've got like a period fire extinguisher, these signs back there.
10:42Oh my god, that is so cool.
10:44I didn't notice that.
10:46I like that sign.
10:47This sign was like a newer addition.
10:48We got it in right before we froze.
10:50These are all pegboard.
10:52And we kind of kept the recording studio and the lower bit of the walls in this vocabulary.
10:59These we call the white rain lights behind us that are all kind of hover in and hover out.
11:05Those were based on research that we'd seen from the period and hand-fabricated all of them.
11:10And you can see the bottom dishes.
11:12They actually look like they're a bit scorched, and that's intentional.
11:15And I just want to point out that window is so gorgeous and lit so beautifully
11:19to indicate Grand Central.
11:20The rosettes were 3D printed.
11:22Do you have shame about this?
11:23What am I saying?
11:24I don't, I mean, a little.
11:25Okay, a little shame.
11:26I was just curious.
11:27They were hand-carred by five people over the course of three months.
11:31I mean, it's 2025.
11:32It's whatever you got to do to get it done.
11:34On budget.
11:35So that's a big part of it.
11:36And also because they're repetitive, it's like two molds, two programs,
11:39and get them then bronzing it all.
11:41Having that detail makes a big deal.
11:47So this is basically our storage hub for all the scenic pieces.
11:50Funny thing is we can't manually open and close it.
11:52It's done by automation.
11:54But it does allow this kind of aperture to completely close down and secure the space,
12:00but then open up and allow all the scenery for See It Now to come out and be manually set.
12:05It also allows the Bill Paley office, I call it the office barge, come out and drift back in.
12:12So we're looking at the back of this set that George and Paul Gross sit in and have a super
12:18manly conversation.
12:19The docking station for Fred Friendly's office that comes out.
12:22And again, period, linoleum tiles, the right chair that was vintage that we re-holstered.
12:28And this drifts out and get this into position, goes out for the scene.
12:32They're all vintage pieces and this was refinished a bit, but totally period 1950s desk.
12:38Growing up in the 90s, I was born in the 80s, but growing up in the 90s,
12:42to be around stuff from the 50s or 60s, things lasted longer and people accepted
12:46that and just lived with it.
12:47So I also feel like this is kind of the desks and chairs from my elementary school.
12:52When we're looking at history and looking at a period and especially something like this,
12:56you're exactly right.
12:57Things would have been 10, 15 years earlier for sure.
12:59And even if not more, like this floor has been around in this space since 1929.
13:05Wow.
13:05Because then we're in the space where we're currently, like our time period is 1954.
13:12So this is our copy room set.
13:14So the place starts with Georgia Hears singing a beautiful song,
13:18Ben George Clooney giving a great speech.
13:19Then it starts with Jenny Morrison playing crowns.
13:22And then they throw to me and Carter Hudson playing Joe and Shirley Worshba in the copy room,
13:27having a private, intimate conversation about the paranoia and McCarthyism
13:32that's beginning to brew in the office.
13:36This is a nice thing.
13:37And Scott, Scott's the one who said this,
13:39everyone who comes here to the play gets a free car from Scott.
13:43And I think that's a, where is he?
13:44That's such a nice thing to do.
13:46It's what a generous, generous gift from Muska.
13:50Our hope is that they, look, it's an entertainment, right?
13:53It's a little bit of a wash for people who felt a little lost right now.
13:58And that's okay.
13:59People take with it what they want.
14:01But what we like is the argument of speaking truth to power,
14:04which I think is never a bad thing to talk about and never a bad thing to embrace and to praise.
14:09This isn't a history lesson and it's not a civics lesson.
14:12It's actually an entertainment.
14:13And that's what Scott's done so beautifully.
14:15The idea of presenting a space within this beautiful building,
14:20when we're discussing the idea of truth and truth and reporting,
14:24there's no theatrical distortion.
14:25It is the reality of presenting an honest space.
14:39Thanks for stopping by, A.D.
14:40But we really have to get ready for our Broadway show.
14:42So get out of here.
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