Out With the Velvet Seats, in With the Dance Floor

How one show got a theater to transform itself into a disco.

- JACKSON MCHENRY

FOR YEARS, scenic designer David Korins and director Alex Timbers thought it would be impossible to bring Here Lies Love to Broadway. The musical, built on a concept by David Byrne that sets the life story of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos to disco beats (engineered by Fatboy Slim), was a hit when it premiered Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2013 and, later, in London and Seattle. But even so, it didn't seem fit for midtown. The problem: The show relies on turning a theater into a disco with ticket buyers included in the action. "I've heard DJs say there's an arc to the evening, taking the audience up and down and up again, and I thought, What if you could do that with a story and the audience is dancing at the same time?" Byrne said. (He'd also learned Marcos loved going to Studio 54.)

The creators had made over smaller spaces into clubs, but convincing a Broadway theater owner to permit major structural changes was harder. They "exhausted" their options in New York-warehouses and ballrooms, too. Nothing worked until a spot opened up at the Broadway Theatre. Owned by the Shubert Organization, it's one of Broadway's largest venues, hangarlike in size with the capacity to seat over 1,700. Here Lies Love is making a risky bet on the three-month renovation of its new home as well as on its concept at a time when Broadway prefers familiar IP. Korins, who worked on Beetlejuice and Hamilton, put it this way: "I've done some complicated and ambitious work on Broadway, and this is 100 times more complicated."

1. Strip down the house