With the award-winning play "The Mountaintop" -- written by former Memphian Katori Hall -- set to open next week on Broadway, New York magazine caught up with the set designer to talk about his meticulous recreation of the Lorraine Motel's Room 306, where Dr. Martin Luther King stayed on the night before he was assassinated. Of course, that room is now a museum piece:
"There are very few places on Earth where time stopped," says David Gallo, the scenic designer for The Mountaintop, a play set on the last night of King's life that opens October 13. Since 1991, the motel has been the National Civil Rights Museum, and the room, virtually untouched, is viewable through glass. For his work on the play, Gallo was allowed inside the room, spending eight hours measuring and photographing every fixture, wall panel, and cigarette burn. He walked us through his work.
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