Inside Broadway’s REDWOOD: How PRG’s LED Architecture and Meyer Sound’s Audio Deliver an Immersive Experience
Among the Redwoods: PRG’s Immersive Craft on REDWOOD (Broadway)
Update: Redwood played its final Broadway performance on May 18. A New York Times Critic’s Pick, the show fused nature’s power with theatre’s force in a staging hailed as “among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations.”
Co-conceived by Tony Award–winner Idina Menzel and Tony Award–nominee Tina Landau, REDWOOD invited audiences on a cross-country journey that culminates beneath giants of the forest— a story of catharsis and connection that resonated deeply with our team here on the Central Coast. We design and produce shows under real redwood canopies; seeing that world rendered with such sensitivity on Broadway felt personal.
The Tech: Sculpture, Scale, and Motion
Led by a top-tier creative team—Video Designer Hana S. Kim, Scenic Designer Jason Ardizzone-West, Lighting Designer Scott Zielinski, and Sound Designer Jonathan Deans—the production leaned on video not as a backdrop, but as an instrument for perspective and emotion. Over 1,000 LED panels formed 13 screens (largest ~30’ × 21’) to sweep the audience from an NYC apartment to a westward road trip and, finally, into the living hush of a redwood grove.
PRG (Production Resource Group) supplied and integrated the scenic, automation, lighting, audio, and video systems—culminating in the largest LED display ever seen on Broadway for this show. Their engineering enabled the production’s central scenic hero, a 32’-tall tree known as “Stella,” to rotate and reveal embedded LED, blending Kim’s content with Zielinski’s lighting like dapples through a canopy.
Color, Contrast, and Cohesion
Kim’s content philosophy privileged feeling over literalism—evoking forest mystery and comfort rather than simply depicting it. Nine super-bright 4K laser projectors textured the stage floor while vertical LED walls shaped the horizon. Deliberate treatment kept these media related but distinct, avoiding the uncanny uniformity that can flatten layered visuals.
Wrapped in Sound
For audio, Deans captured forest recordings and deployed multichannel imaging—enhanced with careful speaker placement around reflective LED—to wrap the room in a believable sound field. The result: voices, music, and environmental detail living together without fighting for the same acoustic space.
Why It Matters to Us
We create experiences in and around the redwoods—lighting groves, shaping pathways, and building moments where technology amplifies the landscape rather than overpowering it. REDWOOD mirrors that ethos: art and engineering in service of emotion, memory, and place. For those of us who call these forests home, it’s a reminder that the best production value is the kind you can feel in your chest.
Press Notes
New York Times Critic’s Pick: “Among the most beautiful and wondrous theatrical creations.”
Observer: “As always, Idina Menzel is pure magic.”
Variety: “Emotionally charged and heart-healing.”
Sources: redwoodmusical.com, prg.com. Photos © PRG and the production.