About the DeonBway Web Site

Hi, I'm Deon Bway: eponym and spokesdroid for the site. And I just wanted to give you a quick backstage tour. The The Broadway Design Roster, On-Line, is a web based sequel to Bobbi Owen's "Designers on Broadway" series (whence obviously "Deon Bway", ahem). Those books, and this site, document designers credited for Broadway design work during the twentieth century. Watch out for the wet paint there, that's the twenty-first century coming in. The other big truck in back has the Sound credits. How did we ever get along without those amazing folks.

Professor Owen is the Michael R. McVaugh Distinguished Professor of Dramatic Art and Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, College of Arts and Sciences, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This is all just a beta site of course, still 'in previews' as we say. So, you will need a password to get in. We have to be soo careful about posting e-mail addresses because of those deadful spam bots, makes me ashamed of my species you might say. Anyway if you can figure out "owen bob (no spaces) at sign (you know) u n c dot o r g (no spaces, a dot is a dot)" that should do it. And, despite the tres formidable title, 'Dear Bobbi'' should do nicely.

Anyway 'no reasonable request refused' seems to be the policy.
You'd be amazed at who you run into here.

Then, to visit the site itself click here and log right in.

Notes about how things work.

• The designer search field: Type in any part of a designer's name. For example you could type 'edmon' to search for Robert Edmond Jones. After a brief pause, the first 15 names that include the letters are shown. If you see the name you are after then select it and smite the enter key. If the designer is not on the list you may wish to enter more letters to refine the seach. We seach names in 'last name first' format; "Jones, R" (with the comma) will work but "Edmond Jones" won't.
• The production search field. Enter a few characters, the first 15 matching titles are shown. Select a title to view a list of productions with that title sorted by year.
• Listing the productions in Broadway season: find and click 'Show/Hide' just below the designer search field. Enter the year of interest (1910 for example) and smite enter. A list of the productions for that year will be shown with the credits for each. Don't forget that a season runs from one spring to the next. So a show opening on February 2nd, 1957 will be listed here as a 1957 production, but was part of the 1956-57 season. Just when season change seems a matter of debate and changes from year to year. So we use the year.
• Seaching for text within the designer biographies : find and click 'Show/Hide' just below the designer search field. Enter the text of interest ('Milwaukee' for example) and smite enter. Each designer will be listed along with her or his biography; your seach text will be highlighted.

Ciao,

Deon