Production designer Glenda Rovello reveals why green is so prominent in her designs and how the Rorschach wallpaper became the first thing she purchased for Frasier on Paramount+.
Even though Glenda Rovello is an icon herself, having worked on classic sitcoms like Will & Grace, the four-time Emmy winner felt very honored to continue not one but two legacies with Frasier on Paramount+, including that of production designer Roy Christopher.
“Roy Christopher was one of my idols,” said Rovello. “I thought he was such a fine designer, so comprehensive. That first set, the original Frasier in Seattle, I had never seen sitcoms like that with the intentional design choices. It all supported the character. Throughout sitcom history, the designers have always been telling those same stories about those characters, but this one was so sophisticated, and everything was so deliberate. The sets were not made to be funny. There was real gravitas to those decisions. When I got called for this, I was all in.”
Of course in the Frasier reboot, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) is no longer in Seattle, but living in Boston with his adult son Frederick (Jack Cutmore-Scott). But he’s still the same old Frasier Crane, down to the Rorschach wallpaper, an homage to his psychiatrist roots.
“The head writers, Joe Cristalli and Chris Harris, asked us to develop a list of items they could reference in scripts. So we gave them a cheat sheet of things they could refer to. That Rorschach wallpaper was something I loved for years, but it’s so specific. When I got the go-ahead for the series, I knew I had his interior coming up, and it hadn’t been designed yet, and I knew I wanted that paper. I didn’t know where it was going to go, and it’s hand-painted, so there’s a very long lead time. I contacted those artists to give me the pieces I needed to design a set around it. I would have never gotten it in time if I had designed the set and then placed that order. That was the first thing I did after saying yes to the show!”
The family dynamic brings about a lot of stylistic choices, with a push and pull between father versus son (although you can guess which style wins out in the end).
“As a parent, I would say Frasier is 100% winning out. It’s Frasier’s space, and we even had a script that described their dynamic, and Freddie didn’t get a whole lot there. He did get a box of soil from Fenway, but it’s not in any way prominently featured. But the space is Frasier’s space.”
Freddie’s room serves as the only place where we get a sense of him, including green cabinets that look like a high-end locker room. But the green is not a reference to Fenway’s Green Monster; it’s actually just a color Rovello likes to use.
“Personally, I love green. That tends to be one of my neutrals because I think the human eye is so accustomed to seeing greens. I tell my decorators, ‘All greens go [together]!’ They don’t have to worry about a jade green next to an ivy green. If we did a blue set, blues fight one another, but greens, have at it! I love green so much that that’s my eldest son’s middle name.”
One cross-section within the apartment where Frasier and Freddie often cohabit is the kitchen, which features two separate entrances, making for a fun misunderstanding in Episode 6’s “Blind Date.” Which came first: the script calling for the kitchen mishap or the kitchen itself?
“The kitchen did. But I always have farce in mind. When we get a pilot script, we design to tell that story, but since it’s a pilot like Frasier, what else can we do to allow more freedom for the writers in the future? And that’s always entrances and exits. These writers are so adept that I knew there would be some kind of farce in the future. Whether it’s in the living room or the kitchen, I just have to allow for that movement and how we can take these actors in and out of these spaces.”
Contrasting Frasier and Freddie’s wide, encompassing apartment is Dr. Crane’s tiny office he shares with Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst). Rovello said she wanted this space to differ from everything else in scale—and in Frasier dominance.
“This is one where the cameramen are shoulder to shoulder covering that set. I like the intimacy, and these are two people who are very close friends but they’ve never been together like that ever. I wanted the office to be so plastered with Alan because it was always his office. And now Frasier has to join that environment. You’ll see in Season 2 how we’re introducing more Frasier art into this aesthetic.”
Frasier is streaming on Paramount+.
