Harmony: A New Musical

Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, with an original score by Barry Manilow and book by Bruce Sussman, Harmony: A New Musical, opened on Broadway in the fall of 2023 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre – following a critically acclaimed off-Broadway run in 2022. Harmony tells the incredible story of the Comedian Harmonists: a world-renowned singing group whose existence was all but wiped from memory by the Nazis after their rise to power in Germany.

b + r had the pleasure of designing media in collaboration with set designer Beowulf Boritt, with LED video elements incorporated into and emerging from Boritt’s striking, black mirrored set. Our design work included larger featured moments like a dynamic, swirling vortex of imagery taking the audience back to Berlin 1927, as well as tiled background arrangements of photographs, patterns, and art deco textures – helping to subtly ground different scenes while at the same time evoking the fragmented nature of time and the memories recalled by Rabbi, played by Chip Zien.

In collaboration with a design team that included lighting design by Jules Fisher & Peggy Eisenhauer, sound design by Dan Moses Schreier, and costume design by Linda Cho & Ricky Lurie, b + r‘s media design played a key role in helping to tell this important story with lessons that resonate strongly today.