When asked about what’s unique about designing the sets for the series, Groom spoke of some of the difficulties he faced when creating the show’s magnificent backdrops. “I think this period—the ’50s and early ’60s—is filled with a lot of traps, and people can fall into them. This period was just as layered as it is today, but often you don’t see it on screens. Everything is sort of ‘of the moment,’ with the diners and things like that. That was a challenge I set up for myself: don’t fall into that trap of everything being of that one moment, but, rather, create a world,” Groom told Backstage. “It’s New York, and our characters live in this building that was built in 1919— that was what we used as our example and that’s still true today, and it was true in the 1920[s], ’30s, ’40s,” he continues.
In one particularly sweet anecdote that touches our hearts just so, he adds, “We get good responses from older people, interestingly, who grew up on the Upper West Side during that time. We have a crew member whose mom cries every time she sees the show because it reminds her of her life on the Upper West Side.”
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The way these special characters come together with the beautiful sets—and of course, the fantastic, period-appropriate fashion—makes us wish we could hit the rewind button in our nostalgia machine and enter Midge’s universe right about now. Anyone care to join us for a Friday night virtual The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel streaming party? We’ll bake the chiffon cake.
