Rogers The Musical
Lighting design for the 2021 production of Rogers The Musical at Marvel Studios.
About the Lighting Design
Rogers The Musical was a full-scale Broadway musical number designed for Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye on Disney+. It appears as a background scene in a single episode with no direct bearing on the plot. The brief was specific: light it as if it’s a full-scale Broadway production, not just one song, then capture it for camera. The whole thing came together in three weeks from initial contact to shoot day.
The design had to walk a line between polished and intentionally imperfect. The scene needed to read as a legitimate theatrical production when the camera was on it, but with a slightly rough quality that fit the in-world context. This is a real-world Broadway musical that exists inside the Marvel universe. Too polished and it wouldn’t read as believable. Too imperfect and it wouldn’t sell as a real show.
The approach to lighting it for camera was to light it as theater. The intent was theatrical-capture: the design language stayed the same as it would for a live audience, just calibrated to the camera’s angles and exposures rather than a single seat in the house. Close collaboration with the camera and art departments meant every lighting choice supported what the camera was going to see while still serving the actors and the choreography on the floor.
This was my first major project returning from COVID. This show also technically means that Dalton and I exist, as ourselves, in the MCU. We’re still waiting for our action figures and movie deals.
- Conceived for Hawkeye by
- Jonathan Igla
- Music and Lyrics ('Save the City')
- Marc ShaimanScott Wittman
- Choreographer
- Joshua Bergasse
- Assistant Choreographer
- Katherine Roarty
- Lighting Designer
- Mike Wood
- Production Designer
- Maya Shimoguchi
- Associate Lighting Designer
- Dalton Hamilton
- Programmer
- Dalton Hamilton
- Lighting Shop
- 4Wall
Production Photos
Press
Rogers is so much more than a funny joke.
Achieves something sublime: It's silly but self-aware; a hilarious commentary on consumerism airing on a network owned by Disney; and, perhaps most important, a genuinely clever and catchy number.