As someone who started their career with dreams of building sets on Broadway, production designer Patrick Howe was thrilled with season 3 of Only Murders in the Building . “I loved everything about season 3 that was relating to our stage musical,” he says. “It was really great to mix all of those things and pull on.
.. things that I learned in my undergrad days of theater.
” Season 3 of Only Murders in the Building takes place a year after the second season, when the star of Oliver’s (Martin Short) Broadway play suddenly collapses on stage during the performance. As Mabel (Selena Gomez) and Charles (Steve Martin) help solve the case, Oliver turns the play into a full-blown musical called Death Razzle Dazzle . Although it was a return to his roots in theater, crafting sets for a musical that doesn’t have a full story presented a challenge for Howe.
“Normally, when you’re designing a show,” he says, “you generally have the book, the lyrics, the score...
none of that existed...
So, it was a lot of me doing my own Only Murders detective work with [showrunner] John (Hoffman) to find out what the musical is theoretically about so I can come up with what we need.” After some phone conversations, Howe was presented with some basic elements – a lighthouse in Nova Scotia on a craggy, rocky foundation with an external staircase. “It was a little vague and loosey-goosey, but it was enough information to research and develop something.
” A nursery set was also bui.