LOS ANGELES – In a milestone year for LD Robert Dickinson, the 91st Academy Awards, broadcast live Feb. 24 from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, CA, represented the 30th Oscar ceremony to by lit by the veteran LD. Dickinson, who has also lit Grammy Award and Olympics ceremonies along with other major international spectacles and TV specials, has 18 Primetime Emmy Awards – three of them for Oscars ceremonies – and two Daytime Emmy Awards.
While other seasoned veterans on the Oscars production team included supervising producer Rob Paine, who has been associated with the annual ceremony for more than 20 years, the 2019 ceremony was a first for production designer David Korins and the third for co-producer Raj Kapoor, who oversaw screen content and performances.
Korins, whose long roster of Broadway design credits includes Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, is currently working on the Broadway production of Beetlejuice. His scenic design for the Oscars included scenic elements dubbed Crystal Cloud, Crystal Swag and two Crystal Presenter elements which were emblazoned with a total 41,000 Swarovski crystals.
The producers for the 2019 event were Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss, and the writing team headed by Jon Macks included Mitchell Marchand, Mike Reiss, Matt Roberts and Beth Sherman. Rickey Minor was music director and Taryn Hurd was talent producer.
This year’s ceremony, the first without a host since 1989, nevertheless scored a 14.3 percent increase in viewership over the 2018 ceremony, according to early Nielsen ratings.
