Purlie Victorious

Hudson Scenic Studios engineered, built, and automated the scenic transformations behind Derek McLane's Tony-nominated set for the 2023 Broadway revival of play, Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch. The comedy's rapid pace demanded scene changes that could keep up with it, so Hudson built a system of puzzle-like tracking panels and cutaway silhouettes that shifted the Judson home into the plantation and tobacco patch in seconds, hidden within the stage deck itself. 

The production's climax asked for something bigger: a dilapidated shanty roof that rises away to reveal the soaring rafters and cross of Big Bethel church, a sudden shift in scale built to land as a genuine surprise. Hudson's automation kept that mechanism silent and repeatable for the run of the show, while the finish team aged and weathered all of the new wood and metal framing to read as rustic, worn barn wood, keeping every moving part disguised as nothing more than a humble cotton patch until the moment it needed to be so much more.