‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel': Inside the Ever-Expanding Amazon Series’ Visual Landscapes

thewrap.com:

expansions of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but what about the MMU (Mrs. Maisel Universe)? Over the course of four seasons — as burgeoning female comic Midge (Emmy nominee Rachel Brosnahan) finds her way through NYC’s comedy underground with her irascible manager Susie (Alex Borstein) — the physical terrain of our title character has also changed wildly, her world inflating much like the 1950s-into-1960s NYC is.“It’s not uncommon for us to have 30 sets per episode”, says award-winning production designer Bill Groom, who knows a thing or two about opulent period environs, having won four consecutive Emmys for his impressive work on HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and has also received nods for every season of “Maisel” to date. “We usually have about 10 days of prep, and for instance, if Midge gets out of the car onto a sidewalk and walks into a building, then walks through a lobby, and gets into an elevator and goes upstairs to an apartment, that might be four sets.

But each one of those sets needs attention and each one is budgeted, and we show up to do what needs to be done. So, it can be kind of daunting.”Among Midge’s new hotspots in Season 4 is The Wolford, the raucous burlesque club where she does her nightly routine due to a slowdown in cashflow, where Midge’s zippy quips compete for attention with dropped drawers and pasties. “We knew that was going to be a big part of our season, so we started on that theater long before scripts were really written”, Groom says, “and it started with research into vaudeville houses and burlesque theaters.

We’ve designed it in a way that it photographs like full-size theater, and it’s close, over 50 feet high in the center. For the backstage area we re-used a few sample sets that we had.