Press
Peter & The Starcatcher
Broadway, The Brooks Atkinson
"Donyale Werle may be the most inventive visual artist working in the theater today.
To enter the Brooks Atkinson Theatre for "Peter and the Starcatcher" is to find yourself in a life-size Victorian toy theater, a gilded dazzle of eye candy, with humorous cameos set in the glittering false proscenium and a glinting sea-blue backdrop for this tale of how Peter Pan became an ageless hero.
Werle, who also created the fantastic American West setting for "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," here nearly betters the filigreed Arthur Rackham illustrations that once accompanied J.M. Barri's stories about the boy who wouldn't grow up."
Bloomberg News
Jeremy Gerard
April 15, 2012
"In this scintillating game of show-and-tell (which is supported by the quirky elegance of Donyale Were's scenic design & Paloma Young's costumes) toy ships become real ones; banana leaves become pirate shields; ropes become windows, waves, or the maw of a behemoth crocodile; and yellow rubber gloves are transformed info flitting tropical birds"
The New Yorker
By John Lahr
April 16, 2012
"The Brooks Atkinson proscenium has been tricked up to suggest a Victorian music hall. (Donyale Werle is the set designer.)"
"Because remember, there's not that much in the way of scenery up there, especially in the first act. (What there is, for the record, is choice, thanks to Ms. Werle, Paloma Young's costumes and Jeff Croiter's lighting.)"
The New York Times
By Ben Brantley
April 15, 2012
"There are also some truly inspired moments - wonderfully choreographed movement by Steven Hoggett with umbrellas and big tribal masks, a line of actors with their backs to the audience creating a wall, Donyale Werle's stunning jungle set (which looks like plastic bags tossed by the tide) and that tropical bird made from just a glove."
Associated Press
By Mark Kennedy
April 15, 2012
"Likewise, a tropical island with enchanted mermaids swimming offshore in a golden lagoon is conjured using deliberately crude painted backcloths, clever costuming and a few crafty props. Working with resourceful designers Donyale Werle (sets) and Paloma Young (costumes), the creative team clearly had a ball tapping into a collective imagination that draws as much from stoner madness as from childhood."
The Hollywood Reporter
By David Rooney
April 15, 2012
"The far-flung adventure unfolds within the confines of a lavishly gilded false proscenium arch from scenic designer Donyale Werle, whose inventiveness for the piece's many locales, sumptuously lit by Jeff Croiter, knows no bounds."
Theatermania
By Andy Propst
April 16, 2012
"The stage (by the playful Donyale Werle) is framed with golden mermaids and a glittering pineapple, making the action that ensues within its borders resemble a gilt-edged pop-up book, containing a children's fantasy that ripples with glee as the origin tale of Peter Pan unfurls."
Vogue.com
by Liesl Schillinger
April 16, 2012
"Kudos also to scenic designer Donyale Werle, who transforms the proscenium into a glittering Victorian music box and the stage into a playground of the imagination."
Backstage
By David Sheward
April 15, 2012
"Donyale Werle's scenic design comprises a dark and alluring tangle of ropes and planks for the seafaring first act and a brighter, more fantastic rendition of the soon-to-be-magical island we discover after intermission."
Talkin‚ Broadway
By Matthew Murray
April 15, 2012
"Peter's look is certainly striking, from Act One's grey shipboard palette to the Whitney Biennial feel of the second half, complete with an eye-popping mermaid scrim and an expressionistic jungle motif."
The Village Voice
By Michael Musto
April 15, 2012
"Instead, with their talented design team, they create a bewitchingly theatrical world out of simple backdrops and props. How to stage a sea chase? Toy boats. A huge beast's eyes and scary choppers? Red headlights and two ropes strung with white triangular flags."
The New York Daily News
By Joe Dziemianowicz
April 15, 2012
"Donyale Werle's sets, subtly adapted to the larger theater, still lend an air of makeshift magic. The blue-hued nautical theme in the first act, taking place on two competing ships, the Wasp and the Neverland, segues into the bright neon tropical colors of the (mythical) island of Rundoon in the second"
The Faster Times
By Jonathan Mandell
April 15, 2012
The Explorers Club
Manhattan Theater Club
"It's hard to imagine any woman wanting to spend time in this clubroom, which Donyale Werle has designed in the same faux-attic style as her previous triumph, "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Although the leather chairs, burnished woods and luxurious carpets define it as a manly room, the stuffed animals, mounted trophies, heroic paintings, and big-game hunting gear that crowd every inch of wall space appear to be the work of adolescent boys run amok."
By Marilyn Stasio
Variety
June 20, 2013
"A couple of gazelles, a bear, a walrus and a few icky-looking bugs adorn the walls of Donyale Werel‚s atmospheric set for this comedy, set in an exclusive London men's club in 1879."
By Charles Isherwood
New York Times
June 20, 2013
"The silent star of the show is Donyale Werle's Victorian men's club set, a mouthwatering melange of burnished paneling, pattern pelts, huge tusks, stuffed animals and more. If your mind wanders during slow spots, your eye always has plenty to explore."
By Joe Dziemianowicz
Daily News
June 20, 2013
"Standing out among the other contributions is the set by Donyale Werle (of Peter and the Starcatcher and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson). The Explorers Club may be intended as an also ran compared to the Geographic Society, but the multi-level barroom of the clubhouse -- with eight stuffed heads, among other decorations -- is luxe (if off-kilter)."
By Steven Suskin
Huffington Post
June 21, 2013
"A bar occupies center stage in Donyale Werle's superbly cluttered set for The Explorers Club. Festooned with taxidermied animals, shrunken heads, two massive elephant tusks and one rather shabby black bear, the title location is where Victorian men of science ponder the mysteries of nature while genteelly getting blotto."
By David Cote
Time Out NY
June 20, 2013
"Donyale Werle (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson) once again proves herself one of the most inventive designers with yet another gamesome, expertly detailed set. Taking a cue from the Club's NYC chapter, her clubroom showcases the same oversized Woolly Mammoth-like tusks framing a fully-stocked bar, and is decorated in that high Victorian style -- all dark woods, leather sofas and expedition souvenirs. But because it's the witty team of Benjamin and Werle, the artifacts verge on the ridiculous: a not-remotely-authentic giraffe pelt covers the rich burgundy carpeting and the hideous-hilarious taxidermy includes a goofy walrus head mounted squarely to one wall. It's deliciously silly, and the perfect tone-setter for the ensuing absurdity."
By Julie Haverkate
Show Business Weekly
June 17, 2013
"Tony Award winner Donyale Werle has designed a striking set, complete with beautifully upholstered Victorian furniture and a fully stocked wet bar. It is perfectly suited for its inhabitants who describe brandy and cigars as "the heart and soul of the British Empire." The atmosphere captures the excessive luxury customary of 19th century London's upper crust, while subtly reminding us of the excessive poverty that accompanied this era of economic growth"
By Hayley Levitt
Theatermania
June 20, 2013
"From the start we are impressed and in awe, if not by the play but by the setting designed by Donyale Werle. The spectacularly evoked post-Victorian bar-parlor of the busily-appointed Explorers Club is a taxidermist's delight with a myriad of mounted animal heads, shrunken heads lined up on the bar, a giraffe skin rug, even an upright stuffed bear."
By Simon Saltzman
CurtainUp
June 21, 2013
"As for Donyale Werle's set, the company could probably sell tickets for people to just walk around the stage and examine it all as they would a museum display. Since that's unlikely to happen, a few details about how Werle created this truly drop dead setting as revealed to Brian Scott Lipton in his excellent article for the TDF Theater Magazine: That giraffe rug was actually created from a cowhide rug Werle found and had it cut into the shape of a giraffe and painted with spots. By the same token all those grand looking paintings of past explorers were actually computer generated prints given a special gel coating to give them the look of oil paintings of men looking brave in the face of the various horrible causes of death that could befall an explorer."
Additional Comment by Elyse Sommer
CurtainUp
June 21, 2013
"One of their problems is finding a decent bartender for their club house, which set designer Donyale Werle has packed with thick carpets, taxidermied beasties and exotic weapons."
By Elizabeth Vincentelli
New York Post
June 20, 2013
"Nell Benjamin's comedy refers (lavishly designed by Donyale Werle with the requisite dead animals, leather loungers and sinister flora."
By Jeremy Gerard
Bloomberg News
June 20, 2013
"and the set, by designer Donyale Werle, is as stuffed as the many taxidermied specimens lining its walls."
By Keith Staskiewicz
Entertainment Weekly
June 20, 2013
"extremely handsome club room designed by Donyale Werle with burled woodwork and acres of taxidermy."
By Michael Sommers
New Jersey Newsroom
June 21, 2013
"a gorgeously detailed set by Donyale Werle and Marc Bruni‚s spirited direction"
By Jesse Oxfeld
New York Observer
June 25, 2013
"Donyale Werle has designed a set of a men's club in great detail. These places still exist, even in New York where the Harvard Club or the Player's Club still function as they have for a century. The dark wood, the floor to ceiling bookshelves, the framed portraits, the taxidermy and most importantly the bar are all meticulously detailed. It is worth a walk up to the stage apron for a closer examination of all the work that‚s been done to fully appreciate the artistry."
By Michael D. Jackson
Examiner.com
July 4, 2013
The North Pool
Vineyard Theater
"To glimpse Donyale Werle's set for Rajiv Josep'‚s The North Pool at the Vineyard is to return to the futility, pettiness, and misery of high school."
By Alexis Soloski
The Village Voice
March 14, 2013
"The lights come up on Donyale Werle's eerily perfect depiction of an administrator's office in a large public high school. Is there a sadder place in the world? In Werle's rendering, complete with worn-out office furniture, "inspirational" posters, glazed brick walls, and dingy venetian blinds, the answer is no."
By David Barbour
Lighting & Sound America
March 6, 2013
"a perfect fit for Donyale Werle's shabby gray cinderblocked set that will instantly remind anyone of high school."
By Mark Kennedy
Associated Press
March 6, 2013
"Dr. Danielson's cringe-worthy soundbytes make him seem right at home in Donyale Werle's dollhouse set, which is festooned with cheesy Successories® posters, a large topographical map of the United States, and other such trappings of American secondary education."
By Zachary Stewart
Theater Mania
March 6, 2013
"From the faded maps and "inspirational" poster of Einstein mounted on the chipped concrete walls, Donyale Werel‚s set achieves an admirable verisimilitude."
By Zoe Erwin-Longstaff
Curtain-Up
March 5, 2013
"The best work comes from scenic designer Donyale Werle, who makes Turner's cement block office authentically depressing."
By Brian Wallace
Edge New York
March 6, 2013
"Donyale Werle's set is an immaculate recreation of a high school office"
By Keith Staskiewicz
Entertainment Weekly
March 6, 2013
Allegiance
The Old Globe Theater
"The Old Globe has given Allegiance a Broadway-level production. Stafford Arima's fluid direction, along with Donyale Werle's open scenic design, Darrel Maloney's projection design, and Howell Binkley's lighting design allow for the many shifts in scene that the story requires."
Talkin‚ Broadway
By Bill Eadie
September 21, 2012
"Especially effective is Donyale Werle's set of giant shifting shoji screens, which serve as surfaces for Darrel Maloney's evocative projections. Together, they not only transport the story from farm to camp to battle front in France, but provide the gateway for entering the play itself. In the initial scene, December 7, 2001, an elderly Sammy (a wistful George Takei) is given a box from his sister who has recently died. When he flips the lid open we see the top of the box imprinted with a colorful version of the dull projected wallpaper of his apartment. The wall lifts and we are drawn as if through the box into Sammy's memory."
Stage and Cinema
By John Todd
September 24, 2012
"Scenic designer Donyale Werle and projection designer Darrel Maloney share credit for Allegiance's striking look, taking us from rural Salinas to internment camp barracks to the battlefields of Europe, with scene-setting images projected on Japanese-style sliding paper screens."
Stage Scene LA
By Steven Stanley
Sept 23, 2012
"Director Stafford Arima propels the action against Donyale Werle's minimal, yet mesmerizing set design of sliding scrims resembling Japanese shoji screens. Against these screens, Howell Binkley's lighting and Darrel Maloney's imaginative projection design convey the audience into Sam's apartment, to the Kimura farm, aboard lumbering passenger trains, behind camp stockades, on the battle field, and as witness to the A-bomb drop on Hiroshima and its aftermath."
Culture Vulture
By Lynne Friedman
September 2012
"Donyale Werle's scenic design is deceptively simple, a set of hand-designed shoji screens masterfully choreographed by Arima in an ever-shifting myriad of configurations."
North County Times
By Pam Kragen
September 20, 2012
Once on This Island
Paper Mill Playhouse
"As seen in her Broadway work (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Peter and the Starcatcher, for which she won the Tony Award last night), the set designer, Donyale Werle, is a true original; here, she unfurls bolts of blue cloth for oceans and builds palm trees out of the same rickety planks of wood used for island huts. For a number detailing the island's history, she deploys enormous puppets carried on poles. Birds fly along laundry lines and papier-mâché cloud formations appear out of nowhere. This deliberately naive, folk-art approach is lit with delicacy -- and the occasional stab of saturated color -- by Kenneth Posner."
Lighting & Sound America
By David Barbour
June 11, 2012
"Donyale Werle's attractive scenic design begins with a stage-size screen that often acts as sea and sky and adds rustically stylized palms and shanties on one side of the island and golden, wooden structures for the luxurious hotel on the other side, where Daniel and his family live."
The New York Times
By Anita Gates
June 8, 2012
"But the scenic design by Donyale Werle has a wonderful home-made feel appropriate for this story and the lighting by Kenneth Posner and sound by Randy Hansen add to the fable-like aura."
Huffington Post
By Michael Giltz
June 4, 2012
"Donyale Werle's spare but elegant scenic design is marked mainly by a large scrim, which reflects Kenneth Posner's sharp lighting, along with some wooden structures, clouds made out of cloth, and large and small stick puppets."
TheaterMania
By Matt Windman
June 4, 2012
"Flowing fabric becomes the ocean, a pole with a yellow disc becomes the sun and an origami parrot flies by on a clothesline in Donyale Werle's inventive, folksy scenic design."
The Record
By Jim Beckerman
June 6, 2012
"The success of the production also must be credited to the fine work of scenic designer Donyale Werle and costume designer Jessica Jahn, who turn the Paper Mill Playhouse stage into a tropical island paradise."
New York Theater Wire
By Paulanne Simmons
June 3, 2012
Taming of the Shrew
Theatre For a New Audience
"On a handsome set of weathered-looking wood, designed by Donyale Werle, the production opens with the framing device, often dropped, in which a soused tinker, Christopher Sly (Matthew Cowles), is duped into believing he's a rich lord."
New York Times
By Charles Isherwood
April 3, 2012
"Donyale Werle's colorful, multi-level, rustic wooden set nicely backgrounds the action as the battle of the sexes erupts onstage."
Associated Press
By Jennifer Farrar
April 3, 2012
"At least Donyale Werle created a nice wooden set, full of nooks and crannies...at one point (Maggie) Siff throws her skirt over her shoulder to climb a ladder."
New York Post
By Elizabeth Vincentelli
April 3, 2012
"A good deal of the credit for the 19th century magic must go to Donyale Werle and Anita Yavitch, whose set (a rustic country house with countless windows, ladders, and doors) and costumes (from haute couture to raffish rags) do far more than decorate the stage. They create an ambience in which one feels the winds of change as if one had suddenly entered a world in which enterprising folks could gain property and wealth, and perhaps a good wife or husband."
Curtain Up
By Deirdre Donovan
April 2, 2012
"Faced with a sometimes problematic work for modern audiences, Arbus has wisely cast a troupe of genuinely amusing comic actors -- and having guessed them up in Anita Yavich's wild Wild-West costumes on Donyale Werle's all-wooden saloon set -- presents them almost as if they're clowns emerging from a circus car."
Theater Mania
By David Finkle
April 2, 2012
"This allows the show to begin with some broad comic strokes that seem perfectly in tune with Donyale Werle's wooden thrust setting and Michael Friedman's piano musical accompaniment, played with barroom brio by Jonathan Mastro."
Backstage
Karl Levett
April 1, 2012
"Donyale Werle's wooden plank thrust set, combined with Marcus Doshi's lighting, resembles both a cowboy saloon from a John Wayne movie and, to some degree, Shakespeare's Globe itself."
NYtheater.com
By David Gordon
April 1, 2012
The Rocky Horror Show
The Old Globe
"Musically the rock score is as raucously alive as ever, with the orchestra in plain view behind the castle set, a la JC Superstar and other pop rock operas of this genre. The whole set design by Donyale Werle is dark with eerie strings of colorful lights over the metal grating."
BroadwayWorld.com
Don Grigware
September 27, 2011
"Donyale Werle's set has that properly lost-in-time feel (with shades of steampunk), aided by projections of vintage movie clips, And the five-piece band, partly visible onstage, rocks through favorites such as "The Time Warp" and "Hot Patootie" with aplomb."
San Diego Union Tribune
James Herbert
September 24, 2011
"The physical production looks great, particularly Donyale Werle's crumbling theater/fun house set and Emily Rebholz's sexy, updated costumes."
North County Times
Pam Kragen
September 29, 2011
"Donyale Werle's Gothic set and Emily Rebholz's costumes drip with decadence."
San Diego Reader
Jeff Smith
September 24, 2011
"The dark and stormy night lives in Donyale Werle's arrogant decor, pieced together from stuff found discarded in the alley behind the old Republic Pictures studios."
San Diego.com
Welton Jones
September 25, 2011
"Donyale Werle's busy, nondescript yet gothic flavored set is cluttered with lots of paraphernalia from discarded junk. It takes on the trappings of an old sci-fi movie consisting of gadgets from out of space, lots of Rui Rita's blinking lights and a long staircase leading to, I'm guessing, the bedrooms where more naughty shenanigans take place."
San Diego Examiner
Carol Davis
September 28, 2011
Peter & the Starcatcher
New York Theatre Workshop
"Donyale Werle's dream box of a set is all sooty shadows in the first act and music-hall paradise sunshine in the second (with matching lighting by Jeff Croiter and witty, period-scrambling costumes by Paloma Young). Against this backdrop the performers keep reconfiguring themselves into various shapes that serve to evoke (quite ravishingly) the different cabins of a ship, a hungry and dynamic ocean and (with the use of foliage-shaped panels) a jungle to get lost in."
Ben Brantley
The New York Times
March 9, 2011
"Donyale Werle's brilliant set, playing off dark ropes and riggings in act one and with a bright, plastic concept an avant-garde Little Mermaid in act two, provides the cast, led by the high-octane Christian Borle as the pirate king, with a veritable playground."
Brendon Lennon
Financial Times
March 9, 2011
"At least, the production benefits from a highly original design. Donyale Werle, who transformed the Royale Theatre beyond recognition for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, here covers the NYTW stage with a faded Victorian proscenium and purple swagged drapes; the first act unfolds on a nearly bare stage populated by a couple of trunks and indefinite scenic pieces; the second act, set on a South Pacific island, is like a child's-eye view of Gauguin, with the stage wrapped in translucent blue-green drops."
David Barbour
Lighting & Sound America
March 10, 2011
"The set design by Donyale Werle is gorgeous. It masks the ubiquitous rear brick wall of New York Theatre Workshop, outfitting the space with a copper-colored proscenium and progressing from dirty charcoaled darkness in the first act to the appropriately technicolored wonderscape of Neverland in the second."
Avi Glickstein
NYTheatre.com
March 6, 2011
"The production team provides artful visual humor, from Donyale Werle's clever, atmospheric set design and his monster crocodile to Jeff Croiter's adroit lighting to Paloma Young's grungy outfits for sailors and orphans, and her lovely, bright mermaid costumes."
Jennifer Farrar
Associated Press
March 10, 2011
"Design work is delightful, especially Jeff Croiter's vivid lighting and Donyale Werle's tangle of rigging for the shipboard scenes, framed by a kitschy gilded fake proscenium and dusty velvet show curtain."
David Rooney
Reuters
March 9, 2011
"And while that tail-flipping chorus number is backed by a gorgeous music hall style curtain and Donyale Werle's scenic design includes a gold proscenium and many beautiful stage pictures, some the most effective scenic touches are created by means of super simple props and inventive physicality with the actors using often their bodies and props like ropes to create the ship and shore world in which their adventures play out."
Elyse Sommer
Curtain up
March 2011
"The drama unfolds within the confines of a lavishly gilded false proscenium arch from scenic designer Donyale Werle, whose inventiveness for the piece's many locales, sumptuously lit by Jeff Croiter, seems to know no bounds."
Andy Propst
Theatermania
March 10, 2011
"all placed within the charmingly ramshackle sets by Donyale Werle. (What appears to be carved woodworking on the Victorian-style proscenium built for the production is on closer inspection plastic forks and what I'm pretty sure are coffee-cup lids glued to the arch.)"
Jesse Oxfeld
New York Observer
March 15, 2011
"Thanks to a few props and Jeff Croiter's versatile lighting, Donyale Werle's charmingly rough-hewn set is transformed into a dozen locations, from a broken-down scow to a lush jungle. Yellow gloves become tropical birds, a rope transforms into a cramped ship's cabin, and, in one hysterical musical number, kitchen appliances adorn mermaids' costumes (kudos to designer Paloma Young)."
David Sheward
Backstage
March 9, 2011
"Designer Donyale Werle frames the swashbuckling events within a gaudy proscenium arch of yesteryear and fills the stage with nautical fragments and jungle greenery. Several feet of rope are used fluently by the actors to create doorways and evoke tight spaces while in one striking moment a double line of cordage is hung with triangular pennants to simulate the chomping teeth of that monster crocodile."
Michael Sommers
NewJerseyNewsroom.com
March 8, 2011
"Though set designer Donyale Werle frames the stage in a beautiful, classically Victorian proscenium arch, the first act's many locales are achieved impressionistically, with the help of Jeff Croiter's distinctive lighting. In some instances, a long rope held just right is all that's needed."
Michael Dale
BroadwayWorld.com
March 10, 2011
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
Broadway, The Bernard B. Jacobs Theater
Online Interactive feature: "A Horse Overhead" by Erik Piepenburg, Oct. 7, 2010
New York Times feature: "Inside Old Hickory's Curio Cabinet" by Erik Piepenburg, Oct. 6, 2010
"Walk into the Jacobs Theater, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson envelops you long before you sit down. Red Christmas lights and twinkly chandeliers are strung every which way over the orchestra seats, the columns are wrapped in pelts and rawhide laces, and there's scraggly-looking taxidermy hanging from every available surface. You can barely see the stage, which is low; the blood-red seats almost blend right into the footlights. It's a spectacular first impression. Donyale Werle, the scenic designer, has a lot to be proud of, and ought to have a Tony on the mantel next year."
Christopher Bonanos
New York Magazine
October 13, 2010
"Two stars blaze especially bright in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the nose-thumbing, mostly high-energy musical that has just capped its long creative journey by bounding on to Broadway: Donyale Werle, who designed the set, and Benjamin Walker, who plays the title character, America's seventh president, in tight black jeans. Werle, who scours funky websites and even funkier flea markets for detritus, has created an all-theatre environment that pays homage to two kinds of clubland: the gentlemen's sanctuaries in which stuffy, 18th-century portraits soothe the souls of the white and wealthy aged; and the pop-music fortresses in which disco and punk-loving youth find a raucous home."
Brendan Lemon
Financial Times
October 13, 2010
"In most ways, though, this production has been refashioned for Broadway in ways that do not betray its core of ornery ambivalence. The Jacobs Theater has been transformed by the set designer, Donyale Werle, into a loopy Wild West side show, strung with both multicolor fairy lights and hanging examples of the taxidermist's art. This approach extends and heightens the show's jumble-sale aesthetic without overpackaging."
Ben Brantley
New York Times
October 13, 2010
"Scenic designer Donyale Werle has thrillingly turned the inside of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre into a reflection of the play itself: A bizarre mishmash of mounted animal heads, askew oil paintings of stern-looking old white men, multiple chandeliers, and miles of gathered burgundy cloth. It looks like an Old West bordello threw up."
Mark Kennedy
AP
October 13, 2010
"The result of all this is a production that soars along like a carnival ride. Timbers is abetted by scenic designer Donyale Werle, who has tricked out the wide stage of the Jacobs -- and the entire auditorium, too -- with what look to be tag-sale discards from the Smithsonian attic. Justin Townsend, too, contributes with a lighting scheme that ties stage and auditorium together with countless chandeliers and long, colored neon strips."
Steven Suskin
Variety
October 13, 2010
"Lots of energy goes into sustaining an exaggerated cartoonishness. Designers Donyale Werle (sets) and Justin Townsend (lights) have filled the Jacobs theater with twinkly bulbs and chandeliers, portraits, thingamajigs and even a stuffed horse (it hangs upside down in the orchestra section) for the sake of eye candy and a wonderland vibe."
Joe Dziemianowicz
NY Daily News
October 14, 2010
"There can be no complaints, however, about the astounding work of scenic designer Donyale Werle and lighting designer Justin Townsend. Not only have they transformed the Jacobs' stage into an overdecorated hunting lodge, but the entire theater is festooned with chandeliers, walls are lined with portrait of dead presidents, and a dead horse hangs over the middle of the orchestra. It's a setting that would be hard for any show to live up to!"
Brian Scott Lipton
Theater Mania
October 14, 2010
"From the hilarious comic mugging onstage to the way that set designer Donyale Werle has extended the cabinet-of-curiosities set into the house and around the audience, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson embraces you with its wit and verve, making a bid for the smartest, sharpest new musical in years."
David Cote
Time Out New York
October 21, 2010
"Every other aspect of this production is first-rate, from the fabulous three-piece onstage band to Donyale Werle's set, which turns the living room of the Hermitage, Jackson's Tennessee mansion, into a duplicate of a downtown club."
Terry Teachout
Wall Street Journal
October 15, 2010
"The amazingly talented scenic and lighting designers Donyale Werle and Justin Townsend have recreated the wonderfully over-decorated setting from the Public's Newman stage and again lined the theater's walls with presidential portrait pages. To put audiences more into the Fringe-on-Broadway spirit, they've transformed the entire theater into a combination saloon and hunting lodge with its ceiling festooned with lights, chandeliers and even a large stuffed animal straight from a taxidermist's lab."
Elyse Sommer
Curtain Up
October 18, 2010
"Werle dreamed up these environs as well as the similarly evocative setting, which flexibly accommodates the musical's fragmented, fleeting, seemingly spontaneous happenings."
Michael Sommers
New Jersey Newsroom.com
October 13, 2010
"But the entire creative team has likewise risen to the challenge, with set designer Donyale Werle especially triumphant in changing the Jacobs into a comfortably claustrophobic lodge hall that perfectly blends early-1800s indelicacy with modern scenic-kitsch sensibilities."
Mathew Murray
Talkin' Broadway
October 13, 2010
"Donyale Werle's nut-house set, which is a country tavern, history department faculty lodge, and boozy rock club all at once, extends into the entire theater and provides the perfect setting for the show's multiple perspectives."
David Sheward
Backstage
October 13, 2010
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
The Public Theater, The Newman
"Running wild through Donyale Werles preposterously overcrowded set, replete with dusty emblems of Americana and specimens of taxidermy, the ensemble conjures the sass of smart, stoned, unchaperoned kids let loose in the Smithsonian."
The New York Times
Ben Brantley
April 7, 2010
"Designer Donyale Werle has filled the stage of the Publics Newman Theatre, which is awash in red neon lighting, with the debris of history, portraits of vaguely historical figures and a parade of stuffed animals, including a moose head."
AP News
Michael Kuchwara
April 6, 2010
"Donyale Werles scarlet set spills beyond the proscenium with crystal chandeliers, red lights, plentiful taxidermy, ropes, gilt-framed portraits, you name it -- turning the Newman Theater into a Victorian toy theater as designed for 'The Twilight Zone.' "
Bloomberg.com
Jeremy Gerard
April 7, 2010
"Now Donyale Werles collage set (red curtains, ropes, oil paintings of past Presidents and taxidermied animals) spills off the bigger Newman Theater stage into the house."
Time Out NY
David Cote
April 7, 2010
"Indeed, the too-much-is-never-enough approach of theater collective Les Freres Corbusier -- whose previous outings include Boozy and Dance Dance Revolution -- is evident from the moment one walks into the Newman Theater. Not only has the stage been spectacularly transformed into an overdecorated hunting lodge by set designer Donyale Werle and lighting designer Justin Townsend, but the entire auditorium is festooned with chandeliers and the walls are lined with portrait of dead presidents."
Theater Mania
Brian Scott Lipton
April 7, 2010
"Within the texture of Timberss production, which has been designed by Donyale Werle (sets), Emily Rebholz (costumes), and Justin Townsend (lights) as a stream-of-consciousness Victorian problem play staged in a 2010 lodge hall, there are no accidents, no incongruities. Everything contributes to a sense of permanent continuity, the notion that the past, present, and future are linked within the paralysis - and, usually, downright stupidity - of human existence."
Matthew Murray
Talkinbroadway.com
April 6, 2010
"Donyale Werles bizarre set is a barroom, a concert hall, and a lounge in a college history department. It perfectly reflects the shows multiple perspectives, as do Emily Rebholzs time-tripping costumes. Justin Townsend created the scene-shifting lighting, which transforms the space from battlefield to mosh pit to executive mansion."
Backstage
David Sheward
April 6, 2010
"You know something is up the minute you enter the Publics Newman Theatre. The space where A Chorus Line was born, usually lacking in décor, is swathed in red velvet, the walls adorned with 19th-century portraits, the ceiling bearing dozens of distressed period chandeliers and long red fluorescent tubes. Onstage, the upstage wall is covered with animal heads, dartboards, and empty picture frames. (Birdies, strobes, and other units are hidden in every conceivable crevice.) Nobody, but nobody, has ever decorated this theatre in this manner -- it looks like The Addams Familys rec room." "Alternately hilarious and grating, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is nearly as cluttered as Donyale Werles set."
Lighting & Sound America
David Barbour
April 7, 2010
"Donyale Werles set adds to the larger-than-life fantasy by littering the entire theatre with old artifacts from great-great-great-grandmothers dimly-lit attic. Taxidermies are mounted, some covered in plastic. Crystal chandeliers are everywhere, and red velvet drapes are aptly stored. Framed oils of U.S. presidents line the walls on either side of the audience; accumulated memorabilia,dart boards and the like,are stacked, chock-a-block, throughout. The objects hint at adventures of a bygone era. They feel as if they are deeply buried beneath their own weight. Drums, piano, guitar, and bass dot the dark, modest stage, and the musicians fade into the debris as they actually play Michael Friedmans credible, emo score."
NYTheater.com
Jo Ann Rosen
April 2, 2010
"Everything erupts upon designer Donyale Werles surreal setting involving acres of blood-velvet drapery, antebellum curios, gilt-framed portraits of American worthies, flocks of crystal chandeliers and a mess of beer cans."
News Room Jersey
John Sommers
April 6, 2010
"Handsomely staged, with an inviting red-velvet den by Donyale Werle that makes the Publics Newman Theater even more intimate"
Slant Magazine
Jason Clark
April 6, 2010
"The balance between people with hand held mics and those without is jarring, not to mention surprising when everything else (including the set with no end that reaches to the rafter by Donyale Werle) is so finely tuned."
New York Theater Guide
Tulis McCall
April 7, 2010
"The young, talented cast careens across Donyale Werle's set which has enough taxidermy, vintage furniture, and thrift-store bric-a-brac to decorate several Williamsburg bars with high spirits and impeccable comic timing."
Adam Green
Vogue.com
March 30, 2010
Picasso at the Lapin Agile
Two River Theater
"(Hal) Brooks' swiftly staged production is played on one of the most eye-arresting sets of the season. Donyale Werle has made this watering hole quite lived-in. Shelves sport trophies from long-forgotten victories, while the walls display license plates, lacrosse sticks and even a tiny print of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks." One could say that the set has everything but the kitchen sink – but that's probably there, too, behind the bar."
Peter Filichia
The Star Ledger
May 26, 2010
"The seats are stuffed because, yes, several of the performances in this rendition are top notch, the source material is for the most part enjoyable, and the set design by Donyale Werle is incredible."
John Dunphy
New Jersey News Room
May 24, 2010
"Scenic Designer Donyale Werle has provided a jewel of a barroom setting."
Bob Rendell
TalkinBroadway.com
May 30, 2010
Broke-ology
Lincoln Center Theater, Mitzi E. Newhouse
"Shadows of the bars on the windows can be seen through the frilled curtains of their homey, cluttered house. (The set by Donyale Werle is remarkable for its lived-in detailing, right down to the upside-down ketchup bottle in the refrigerator door.)"
Charles Isherwood
The New York Times
October 6, 2009
"Director Thomas Kail and set designer Donyale Werle work hard to illustrate the verisimilitude Jackson is trying for: characters seem totally at home on Werles agreeable shambles of a two-story house, but the patchy lawn creeping up to it suggests real menace, as do the barred windows and the heavy black metal screen door. This is clearly a good place inside a bad place."
Sam Thielman
Variety
October 5, 2009
"Jacksons dialogue is deceptively easygoing, as naturalistic as designer Donyale Werles crowded and homey kitchen-living room set. And director Thomas Kail lets the play unfold at a leisurely pace."
Michael Kuchwara
Associated Press
October 5, 2009
"The production has the first-class patina of all Lincoln Center Theatre shows. Donyale Werles kitchen/living room setting seems to have been literally ripped out of the building containing it, revealing bits of the surrounding structure, as well as a yard that consists of concrete, with bits of grass breaking through."
David Barbour
Lighting & Sound America Online
October 12, 2009
"Based on the 30-year-old playwrights own family, the play has a deeply lived-in feel (Donyale Werle did the detailed set)"
Frank Scheck
New York Post
October 6, 2009
"When we first meet William King (Wendell Pierce, from The Wire) and his wife, Sonia (Crystal A. Dickinson) in 1982, theyve settled into their cramped, shabby home (designed with appropriately loving stuffiness by Donyale Werle)."
Matthew Murray
Talking Broadway
October 5, 2009
"Director Thomas Kail saves the production from sentimentality by focusing on the gritty reality of the action. Donyale Werles detailed set is especially helpful here. Strewn with junk food, medicines, and a lifetimes bric-a-brac, this house feels lived in down to the scrubby patch of lawn on the stages apron."
David Sheward
Backstage
October 5, 2009
"They live in a neighborhood rough enough to warrant having bars on every window. But at least, given their limited income, its a decent enough place (particularly as realized by scenic designer Donyale Werle)."
Dan Bacalzo
Theater Mania
October 6, 2009
"Set designer Donyale Werles richly detailed house has been moved intact. It still shows signs of neglect for lack of money and a womans touch but is clearly not just a house but a home."
Elyse Sommer
Curtain Up
October 7, 2009
"During a brief prologue set in 1982, William King (Wendell Pierce), and his pregnant wife Sonia (Crystal A. Dickinson) share a few tender moments in their modest home (beautifully rendered by Donyale Werle)"
Joseph Pisano
Edge Boston
October 13, 2009
"Sets by Donyale Werle contribute greatly to the warmth and real feel of the piece. It is a busy, poor home, but full of the detritus of well-lived lives. You can feel these characters growing organically within this place."
Scott Mitchell
MusicOMH
October 2009
"Donyale Werles sets invite us into the informal living room of a contemporary Kansas City home, with Emily Rebholzs costumes completing the picture."
Diana Barth
The Epoch Times
October 14, 2009
Broke-ology
Williamstown Theater Festival
"The details of the familys struggle are evident in Donyale Werles thoroughly lived-in setting of the Kings modest, well-worn home in the embattled hood of Kansas City. Just as Werle did in "High Fidelity", a world of eye-catching specificity is created -- also echoed in Emily Rebholzs costumes."
Frank Rizzo
Variety
July 13, 2008
"A father, William King (Wendell Pierce) and his sons Ennis (Francois Battiste) and Malcolm (Gaius Charles) are playing a game of dominos in their, cozy, cluttered, shabby but neat Kansas City home (a terrific set by Donyale Werle). There are bars on the windows to keep out the local crackheads."
Charles Guiliano
Berkshire Fine Arts
July 11, 2008
"The Nikos Stage, although smaller than the Main Stage, was brought out in its full glory for Broke-ology. Because the play is set entirely within the confines of a cramped home, the especial importance of a good set was realized and taken care of by Donyale Werle."
Lucas Miller
The Berkshire Review for the Arts
July 17, 2008
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
The Public Lab/ Les Freres Corbusier
"The show is as stuffed with historical fact and myth as Donyale Werles set is with cultural flotsam and jetsam -- a hodgepodge of frayed rugs, heavy curtains, animal heads and baubles that come into focus like items in a hidden-object game."
Ben Brantley
The New York Times
May 18, 2009
"The great American frontier is stripped of all its romance in Donyale Werles set -- a witty sendup of Wild West virility (stuffed bears, mounted moose), cultural pretensions (lopsided chandeliers, tatty velvet draperies) and sentimentality (framed pictures of winsome kittens). Lest we miss the point, lighting designer Justin Townsend drenches this 19th century attic in livid shades of red and dangles neon tubing overhead."
Marilyn Stasio
Variety
May 18, 2009
"And Donyale Werles set is remarkable, a frontier tavern that giddily recalls Spring Awakenings time-warp schoolhouse (complete with neon strips) - except with more antlers."
Matthew Murray
Talking Broadway
May 17, 2009
"Indeed, the too-much-is-never-enough approach of theater collective Les Freres Corbusier -- whose previous outings include Boozy and Dance Dance Revolution -- is evident from the moment one walks into the Shiva Theater to see the stage transformed into an overdecorated hunting lodge by set designer Donyale Werle."
Brian Scott Lipton
Theater Mania
May 18, 2009
"A delightfully cluttered set by Donyale Werle and extremely loud guitar (Justin Levine) and drums (Kevin Garcia) complete the party atmosphere."
Jenny Sandman
Curtain Up
May 17, 2009
"Donyale Werles crimson set, redolent with stuffed animals, is droll. Emily Rebholzs costumes -- one third period, two thirds hip -- are jolly, and Justin Townsends lighting is suitably brash."
John Simon
Bloomberg News
May 21, 2009
"The attractive, young cast - clad by Emily Rebholz in hot variations of 19th Century American garb - assemble on Donyale Werle set (a rustic saloon that looks converted into a 21st Century garage band dive bar)"
Michael Dale
Broadway World
May 23, 2009
"Donyale Werles set design, meanwhile, seems lifted from a Rocky Horror audience shoutback, equating the White House with a "hunting lodge for rich weirdoes."
Adam Perlman
Backstage
May 18, 2009
Jollyship the Whizbang
Ars Nova
"Donyale Werles busy, inventively maritime set gives the show some much-needed cohesion. Trap doors swing open, cabinets turn into bedrooms (its a small cast in every sense), and the ship itself folds into the floor to make room for other pirate-type locations."
Sam Thielman
Variety
June 4, 2008
"Donyale Werles set is as delightful as it is economical and Sam Golds direction keeps the ship surging forward so briskly that you dont have time to realize its not actually going anywhere."
John Del Signore
Gothamist
June 8, 2008
"Theres also a huge rainstorm, demonstrated through spit-take-worthy special effects, to send the tale into full-throttle. This is when you appreciate the genius of Donyale Werles set (Clamps rinky-dink boat is a scream)"
Leonard Jacobs
New York Press
June 18, 2008
Mary’s Wedding
Two River Theater
"Donyale Werles tastefully abstract set stands for a barn and a troop ship, a battlefield and a meadow. But it would have read as static without Ben Stantons romantic lighting design -- oh, that evening sky!"
Anita Gates
The New York Times
February 13, 2009
"Donyale Werles set, which most resembles the partially completed shell of an ark, is flexible enough to suggest the wide spaces of Alberta and the World War I trenches in France."
Bob Rendell
TalkingBroadway.com
"the two hard-working performers onstage throughout as they deliver reams of dialogue, risking splat and splinter while climbing to some precarious perches on the bent timbers and palettes of Donyale Werles rough-hewn set design."
Tom Chesak
Asbury Park Press
February 10, 2009
Lower Ninth
The Flea Theater
"The production eerily portends doom. Instead of literal water, set designer Donyale Werle surrounds the rooftop with black flooring, like an encroaching void."
Mark Blankenship
Variety
February 28, 2008
"Set Designer Donyale Werle has recreated a reasonable replica of such a rooftop, its cheap shingling probably typical of the houses in the city's especially disaster prone lower ninth district."
Elyse Sommer
CurtainUp
February 26, 2008
"Donyale Werles rooftop set is one of the more ambitious the Off Off Broadway Flea Theater has attempted, and it holds water."
Robert Cashill
LiveDesign
March 27, 2008
"Their shingled roof, by set designer Donyale Werle, provides enough levels to create interesting stage pictures without undermining the feeling of entrapment so fundamental to the piece."
Li Cornfeld
Off-Off Online
February 29, 2008