Set DesignOscars 2022: The Ceremony Is Returning to the Dolby Theatre With a Crystal-Covered StageHamilton production designer David Korins gives AD an early look at his glittering creation

By Emil Wilbekin

March 24, 2022

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The 94th Annual Academy Awards will air March 27 at 8 p.m. E.T. on ABC.Courtesy of David Korins

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The world is in flux, and not even the Oscars 2022 ceremony is safe from the global shifts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the social media zeitgeist, the shrinking viewership of network television (thanks in part to said social media), and the advent of blockbuster streaming platforms and binge-watching. But the Oscars, like the film industry they celebrate, are resilient and masterful at creating change, reimagining themselves, and curating transformative storytelling. They don’t call it showbiz for nothing.

On March 27, 2022, the 94th Annual Academy Awards will return home to the Dolby Theatre after a pared-down ceremony with social distancing and COVID-19 protocols last year. The ceremony will pay homage to the best, brightest, and most brilliant film creatives and creators in the world, but this will not be your parents’ Oscars. This will be a moment for Hollywood to, yet again, reinvent itself and our viewing experience along with it.

It took hundreds of craftspeople to create the Swarovski crystal curtain and other elements that will be seen onstage.

Photo: Linda Pianigiani

“Film tends to lead the conversation in art and culture,” explains David Korins, scenic designer and creative director of the 2022 Academy Awards, a role he also held in 2019. “This show tends to be where people look to really understand where we have been, where we are in this moment, and where we’re headed. The thing about the Academy Awards is you have to meet an audience where they are. We have all gone through this indelible, insane, upside down, crazy experience. And we continue to be inside of this extreme turmoil. I feel like this show feels even more poignant and more people are laser-focused on what the ultimate message is going to be for the evening.”

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David Rubin, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, announced “Movie Lovers Unite” as the theme of this year’s Academy Awards, and, with the help of producers Will Packer and Shayla Cowan, there will be a more interactive and equitable awards show including Twitter engagement via the hashtags #OscarsFanFavorite and #OscarsCheerMoment, all-female hosts Regina Hall, Wanda Sykes, and Amy Schumer, an unscripted approach to the evening, and a lot of diverse star power. 

“What’s kind of fascinating about my job is that there is no script for the evening. I sort of create the entire envelope for what will hopefully be some extraordinary, iconic, forever moments,” says Korins, who is best known for his work on Broadway (Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, and Beetlejuice), concert staging (Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Bruno Mars), and set design for the Emmy Award–winning Grease: Live! “We have made a portal that looks into the future. It has to do with an incredibly deep and incredibly forward-thinking sort of future-forward view. In that future, we trade in the currency of elegance and electricity.”

The stage will feature 90,000 Swarovski crystals.

Photo: Linda Pianigiani

“Every single piece of scenery on stage has a light inside of it,” Korins explains about the artful shell of flat orbs and moving pieces which features 90,000 Swarovski crystals. “It kind of glows from within.” According to Korins there are over 5,000 linear feet of LED tape on the set, which is about 120,000 pixels of LED just on the tape alone. “I’m trying with the design to actually make something that feels complex and yet spare and kind of glowing and hopeful. Let’s cast a big, huge beacon of hope on this powerful moment that we all get to experience, and let’s find that light, and then let’s supersize it.”

The other forward-leaning element will be the stage, which extends into the auditorium and banquet-seating-like theatrical-arena staging to create a sense of community between the winners, presenters, and performers, and the audience of their peers. “You can see that we’ve pushed the stage out into the audience; literally, it’s the first time ever in the Dolby where we’ve decked over a large part of the audience,” Korins explains. “We’ve created an actual community around the winner circle and around the performance space. People use that term immersive and environmental all the time, but this is truly an opportunity where people will be engulfed in the community. It will become undeniable when you see a winner receiving an award and their peers are going to be wrapping around them.”

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You can tune in to the Oscars 2022 ceremony on March 27 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

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