Designing Broadway: Set Designer David Gallo Honors History for The Mountaintop

Translating an iconic real-life location is a test for a scenic designer, and The Mountaintop’s David Gallo went to great lengths to do the job right. To recreate the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. spent his last night before his assassination in 1968, the Tony-winning set and projection designer amassed what he calls “the world’s largest library of details” on this historic hotel room. Some elements, like an incorrectly installed door number and out-of-production fabrics that had to be custom made, were recreated in painstaking detail, while others had to be changed to make the layout more stageworthy. Click on to get the scoop on creating the world of The Mountaintop straight from the horse’s mouth, then see stars Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett on stage at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.