Set DesignA Champagne-Colored Plaza Hotel Suite Stars In Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s New Broadway PlayIn the Neil Simon comedy Plaza Suite, the real-life married couple acts against one decadent backdrop

By Cathy Whitlock

March 23, 2022

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick during a preview performance of Plaza Suite.Photo: Joan Marcus

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Email

Opening night for Plaza Suite on Broadway is March 28, and although the play stars real-life husband and wife duo Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, scenic designer John Lee Beatty jokes that he really got top billing in the production, which is directed by John Benjamin Hickey. “It’s the title of the play. I was laughing with Sarah Jessica and Matthew about it the other day and said, ‘You know, I got the title role here,’” Hickey tells AD.

He’s really not wrong. The lavishly appointed titular suite (number 719 to be exact) is the sole backdrop for the three-act play-turned-film-turned-play. First premiering in 1968, the comedy written by the late Neil Simon involves three different sets of characters all played by the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off actor and the Sex and the City star and all staying in suite 719 at Manhattan’s famed Plaza Hotel: a troubled couple celebrating their anniversary, a Hollywood producer reuniting with his old high school flame, and parents trying to coax their daughter out of the bathroom on her wedding day. It’s the first time the showbiz couple, who have been married for over two decades and share three children together, has appeared together since the 1995 play How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Parker and Broderick perform three different roles each in the play.

Photo: Joan Marcus

For the interiors, Beatty was influenced by the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, North by Northwest, where Cary Grant’s character stays in a suite at the Plaza while searching for the man who stole his identity. “I started with the film because it had a certain glamour and a beautiful color scheme that really inspired me,” Beatty tells AD. (The 1959 film also marked the Plaza’s big screen debut.) A regal, yellow-toned champagne color appears on the gilt-framed damask covered walls, bedspread and tufted upholstery in Beatty’s onstage version—he says it is a nod to the fact that the play is “a champagne experience.” The two-time Tony Award winning designer also called upon his own memory, recalling a time he won a raffle ticket to stay at the hotel and noticed how tall the room’s architecture was.

The designer framed damask fabric from New York City’s Zarin Fabrics in place of wallpaper because the former is flame retardant. 

Photo: Joan Marcus

For the furniture, he wasn’t looking for your typical antiques. “I call it ‘department store furniture.’ [I was looking for a] late sixties take on French furniture, although not really French. It’s not something everybody is coveting right now,” he says. But he was able to source what he needed from various antique shops in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut, and the resulting set is dressed with pieces like a gilt clock and pair of alabaster urns on the faux marble mantle, bamboo magazine rack, and of course, ‘60s style telephones. Throughout the three acts, the only changes the designer makes are the different floral arrangements (peonies, birds of paradise, and roses) that reflect the characters in each act.

The only change to the set in the three acts are the floral arrangements. For act two, the designer determined a Hollywood producer would request birds of paradise flowers in his hotel room.

Photo: Joan Marcus

For the exterior backdrop that depicts the view of the General Motors building and the Sherry-Netherland from the hotel’s seventh floor, Beatty hit Fifth Avenue in search of “the oldest doorman I could find” and asked him what buildings to include and eliminate. As luck would have it, he also found a book of period images of New York while waiting at the dentist’s office, and the result is a spectacular view of the Plaza exterior used for the upstage backdrop.

Despite the emphasis on luxurious appointments in this play, theatrical set design is not always just about beautiful spaces. In one of the play’s hilarious scenes, Broderick climbs out the window only to be drenched by rain that is obviously created. “Theater rain comes in three flavors: mist, spritz, and something we call ‘dropping rain.’ And it’s the combination that makes it look right,” Beatty says.

A wide view of the entire set. 

Courtesy of Beatty

Plaza Suite is currently playing at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre. It is a limited engagement scheduled to end in June.

Exploreadbroadwayset designsarah jessica parkermatthew broderick