Tatiana Kahvegian, Tony Award Nominee for The Outsiders Scenography - NY Story

In this new episode of New York Story, I'm here with Tatiana Cavejão. Tatiana was born in São Paulo, Brazil, just like me. She's been living in New York since 2018. Now she lives in Brooklyn and she designs sets for live performances. That's precisely what she did for this Broadway musical, The Outsiders. The Outsiders' scenography was nominated for the Tony Award. We are so proud to have a Brazilian nominated for this biggest award on Broadway. The Outsiders won the Tony Award for Best Musical this year. Tatiana, amazing to meet you. Thank you, Sue. It's really wonderful to be here. Thank you for the invitation. So Tatiana, I cannot wait to hear what is your story. Tell me. Okay, my story is that I was born and raised in São Paulo, as you were saying, in Brazil. I've been living here in New York since 2018. And I come from this very big family with Armenian ancestry. And I think I grew up with these women, especially my grandmothers, being very skilled artisans, just being used to creating things with their hands. So knitting, cooking, embroidery, painting, all that. So I feel like that passed on to me. And I've always been very interested in creating things with my hands. That's spaces or drawings or anything really that could allow for my imagination to be free. I think that is true. That has been with me throughout my life. I studied architecture back in Brazil before coming here. Where did you study? Mackenzie. I did work as an architect for a while. And then very soon I had the opportunity to begin working in the arts department of movies and TV series and advertising. I learned a lot. And I think that's when the spatial vocabulary or my interest in creating spaces connected to stories. Okay. So the first question that I will ask you is, as a child, did you want to be something different? I'm very happy to say no, that I wanted to do exactly what I do. So no, I feel very lucky, very lucky, very privileged. And I don't know if I had the name for it when I was a kid, you know, a scenographer who knows what that is, right? But ever since I was very little, probably four or five years old, I would create spaces out of paper and magic tape and colored pencils in my bedroom. So I still really do that. Isn't that amazing? This is amazing. Tell me more about creating things. What is this passion about? I think to me, it's always been the way I make sense of the world around me. It's connected to curiosity, to just exploring my imagination, as I was saying. So that was just part of me growing up. I feel like I'd begun to draw before walking, you know? So what did you use to create back then? Drawings, stories, spaces. And scenarios, too. Scenarios, too, with anything I could find in my bedroom. Did you use to make it or just draw them? Both. And I would just put things together with anything I had, really. It could be magazines, it could be pieces of something else. And so I guess that was a first encounter with composition, with sculpture, with proportions, scale, all of these things. And I think that found its way in architecture, of course. But then when that storytelling part arrived, then I was like, oh, wait. I can actually create the entire world. There is more to it. Space can actually help convey this whole universe of a story. And that was very fascinating. It is fascinating. Does anyone in your family do something similar? That's really cool. That's especially cool. What brought you to New York City? As I said, I was working in the art department of movies and series and television, all of that. I wasn't very happy in Brazil, in Sao Paulo. I wasn't very happy. I learned a lot, but it wasn't really connecting to my soul, to my heart. My partner, now my husband, he had this dream of coming to New York. He's a jazz musician, mainly. And it was something that he shared with me right at the beginning of our partnership. And I began to dream about it. And it felt like that sort of jump could be very important to me in the moment of the career that I was at. That's really cool. Anyway, he shared this dream with me. It felt scary and wonderful at the same time to consider coming back to school. So I decided to apply for a master's degree at NYU. And of course, so many other things opened up. I found so many amazing things about myself here and about this new community, about this way of working in the theater and all that. And that's so nice that you guys connected because working with stenography and jazz, there is no better place than New York. Exactly. Totally. It's a strong community, for sure. How did you start working on Broadway? Hi. So The Outsiders is actually my first Broadway show. What a good start. What a good start, I would say. Yes. Congratulations. So I've been working professionally here the past three years, more or less. So different scales of shows, different collaborators. And my co-designers for The Outsiders, Christine Jones and Pat Banakes, they were both at NYU when I was there. So they were both teachers. And so we've been in touch ever since I left NYU. And the community, the professional community is very strong. And I feel like people are really there for each other, especially from NYU. And when they were given this opportunity to design The Outsiders, the collective they call AMP. So they invited me to be the first collaborator of this collective, AMP, to co-design with them the Broadway version of The Outsiders. So it's a collective that is still happening. It will continue to have new iterations and invited designers. But I was the first one to work in that particular configuration. So it was wonderful. And how did it change your life? I think it is still changing my life. And it will, for sure. I think there's something quite unique about the audience you can reach. You know, the house is always full. It's just so many people come to the theater to Broadway. It's something that is in people's minds, right? When you say Broadway, people know what it is. People respect that. People have the desire to come to a show, even though sometimes they don't even like theater too much. So I feel like it's different. And it's just the scale of it. And to be able to deal, to learn the skills of this big thing that is a Broadway show and all the amount, just the amount of people, the amount of tools, the amount of time, the amount of artistry. And from this experience, I am for sure expanding my own community. So just meeting more people, more possible future collaborators and artists. And it's really wonderful. I feel very, very, very lucky. I'm curious to learn more about the creative process. OK, you were in AMP and then you were invited to participate in this. What's the process of creating this scenario? We are seeing actually a wonderful scenario here, but we cannot show it to you. I will show you the official images. But I'm curious to understand what's your train of thought and what's your inspiration, where it's coming from and all that. I think for the outsiders, because it is inspired in the novel and in the movie. So we have a particular setting, a particular time and space and things that are real that we can drive information, inspiration from. So for us, that was the starting point, just getting to learn, OK, the story takes place in Tulsa, 1967. What does that mean? How are things there? What is the architectural universe that surrounds these characters and the story? So the beginning is really historical research in a way. But then you begin the conversation with the other collaborators, with directors, choreographers. What is the story about? What are we trying to say? What are the questions we're trying to raise with this particular production? And so that begins to inspire how you deal with the space. And look for inspiration when you get inspired after the story and all that. Where do you look for things? There's one thing I love to do, which is go to the picture collection at the New York Public Library. It's a wonderful room. You just go there and there are files and files, folders and folders of images. And you can just pull them out and you look at real physical images. So it's a wonderful place to do research and to just have your... Just... Exactly. And then you can find things that you're looking for, sometimes things that you had no idea you could use. And then for set design itself, we use a physical scale model. So it means that we use this physical tool, this sculptural tool, to both develop the design. So it's a very... It begins very rough, very malleable, very playful. And it ends up being this miniature, this perfect miniature of the show in perfect scale with all the painting treatments, with everything. And this is a way for us to both design and create the show, but also to share the room with the collaborators, designers, directors, etc. Because we can all sit in the room and go scene by scene with a model, for example. Figure out all sorts of things before getting to the theater. That's amazing. Now, one question about your nomination. Do you remember where you were when you got the news that you were nominated for Attorney Award? I do. I was in my kitchen here in Brooklyn, me and my husband. And then we got a call. No, we were watching it live. Yeah, they were just reading their names. And I was not really making sense of it, I think. My name was there. Is that me? Yeah. And everyone was screaming and then jumping and crying. It was really good. It was, you know, like winning. I'm sure it was. That's how it felt. It is. For us, it is. I mean, I was so proud to see your name there. Is your family aware of the size of this, the dimensions of this? And your friends, do they cheer with you? Everyone is very happy. I think it's one of the coolest things. You get to share that, you know, with your friends, with your family, with people around you and know your journey, know the effort you put into what you do and the love you have for it as well. They're very happy. They were all proud of it. It's so good to share. You know, that's really what it's about, right? You came here with a shared dream. And now things are happening, even like this is very special. And I can't imagine that this can propel new dreams or new stuff happening in your life. How does New York today connect with who you are today and with your dreams? It's a very good question. I feel like I've been able to really reinvent myself in a way that gets me closer to who I am in New York. I don't know if that makes a lot of sense, but you probably understand that very deeply. Yeah, I feel like it's a very tough city to be in. You've got to have this stamina and strength. At the same time, I feel like this city has been giving me a lot and very generous. And I've been able to really push in terms of really trying to do the work that I care about, that I wanted to. And I've been able to grow and I've been able to get a bigger and bigger community. So, yeah, I'm very grateful to be here. You belong to here now. It's belonging. So our Frank Sinatra session, Sinatra taught us that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. You can make it there. It's here in New York. And she made it. So now that you made it in New York, what's next? Where would you like to make it to? I don't know. I mean, I am here, you know, I'll be around. There's still plenty to do here, right? Still plenty to do. Many good projects on the horizon. Still enjoying so many of the flowers, you know, from this production, from everything that is still happening connected to that. Maybe one day, but, you know, I don't think so. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. We still want you here. Tatiana, thank you so much for joining me here. This interview was in English, although both of us speak Portuguese. We really want people to see Tatiana's talent. So we wanted to make sure that by doing this in English, she would be out in the world. That's the reason. I bet Brazilians are going to say, oh, those two girls speak in English. Why are they? Yeah, that's the reason. So thank you again. Thank you, Ceil. It's a pleasure. Stay connected here to see more. Thanks.