How David Korins Designed the Intense World of Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway

For David Korins, designing the set of Dog Day Afternoon on Broadway wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Producer Mark Kaufman first presented Korins with the idea in 2016, and playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis also had him in mind during the developmental process. Wordlessly, they were in agreement. Broadway.com Managing Editor Beth Stevens joined Korins at the August Wilson Theatre for an inside look at his process, discussing the set's intricate details and Korins' favorite feature.

In bringing the 1975 film to the stage, Korins had a lot to chew on. There was, of course, the film itself to use as inspiration—which was also based on a true story of a bank robbery in Brooklyn. After his discussion with Kaufman, Korins decided to give the film a watch. “I remember being so struck by the pressure cooker environment,” he says. “Al Pacino was ripping that place apart and it was incredible. I think that I started designing it that day.”

The design process led to 1,000 pictures on the wall of Korins’ studio. With photos of both the real bank and the film set, Korins worked with director Rupert Goold on how to make the setting more interesting. “It wasn't a place for high entertainment and was kind of bleached of color," Korins points out of the bank. "You could really tell that the production design of the movie was made to make a background which the people could jump off of or be pulled away from. In every shot, there's something really interesting going on on the wall or on the surfaces. We obviously took a page from that because I wanted to make an environment where, as you let your eye wander around the space, it felt 100% real.”

At the end of the dog day, the play is really about a group of people who are trapped in a room. This gave Korins the challenge of creating the room in a way that satisfied the story both technically and aesthetically. “When we went through a bunch of versions of the show where it could be a little bit more abstract and it could move elementally, it never felt right, because it's about the pressure cooker inside of the bank,” he says. Instead, the team committed to building a fully realized environment. “We challenged ourselves first and foremost to make a place that would feel complete; floor, ceiling, all the walls, two doors that lock and all of those things.”

Even as the story expands beyond the bank, the design never allows the audience to fully escape that central tension. “I wanted to give a sense that we never cross-faded out of the bank, that in a hostage situation, even when scenes took place in another location, they would always be live,” Korins explains. “You would always see them sweating, you would see the conditions of the bank, you would see time ticking away.”

Time and place are central to the immediacy of the story. A neon sign hangs on stage before the show begins, pinpointing the exact moment. “It's a pact with the audience,” Korins states. “We're trying to say this is August 22, 1972, Brooklyn. It drops a pin literally in a time and place, and it lets them know that this is a thing that happened.” But the design does more than just mark the date—it evokes the atmosphere. Korins describes the oppressive summer heat that shaped the event itself, noting that the sign’s glow helps communicate it: “The sign is bright neon orange as a way to kind of create that haze in the air and to try and make the atmosphere as thick as it could be.”

The level of detail on the set is extraordinary. Everyday objects, from the Chase Manhattan Bank logo on the deposit slips to the labels on the filing cabinets, are period-accurate and fully realized. Korins explains that these details serve not just the audience, but the actors inhabiting the space. “To me, part of the job of a designer is to help the performers know where they are,” he says. That commitment extends to the building’s wear and tear. “We're doing 1972 Brooklyn. This is what this was. This was a community.” The set reflects years of use, from curling wallpaper to scuffed walls. “When you do 1972, you have to think to yourself, ‘When was it actually put in?’ It was probably put in in 1960. It's been there for 12 years. And so what does that look like?"

Behind the realism lies complex engineering. Though it appears to be a fixed environment, the set is capable of transforming in subtle but significant ways. “It has to rotate completely around and then it rotates in a different way. It's a nifty little piece of technology that we worked up for this one,” Korins shares. Despite its scale, the movement is designed to be invisible. “It was so important that everything did not move or rumble or shake when it rotated.”

For Korins, however, the most meaningful detail lies just outside the bank. The exterior sidewalk, filled with weeds, trash and small environmental touches, expands the world beyond the walls. Because of this, Korins says it’s his favorite part of the whole set. “It talks about the state of Brooklyn,” he explains. “It helps define the island, like this little lily pad floating around in the world.” The set is more than a backdrop. It’s an active participant in the story, shaping how the actors and audience members experience the unfolding events. “It felt really important to do that so that the audience could be complicit in the energy.” So long as it’s only energy that they’re complicit in.

Watch the full interview below.

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