On ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ Production Design Has to Be Ready to Pivot — and Pivot Hard

On “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the production design team can’t just be resting on pretty.

If a set on the wildly popular World of Wonder reality competition series isn’t totally sickening, you have to be ready to pivot. That’s how production designer Jen Chu, who’s been on the series for the last three years, said during IndieWire’s Craft Roundtables with her peers.

“If a producer at an executive level does not think something is funny, they will pivot, and they will pivot hard,” Chu said. “We’ve had entire sets have to change overnight. We’ve had ambitious props that had to be made at the 11th hour, and all of it is to achieve as much heart and humor as possible.”

“If we can set the stage for them a certain way, so that the entertainment is more entertaining, we do have to pivot, and we do it all the time,” added Chu, who wants to create the best possible environment for the drag queens to really werk it on the runway. “We just have a tremendous amount of people on camera at all times, and they could do anything at any time. Flexibility is a big part of it.”

For her and her team’s work on Season 18 of “RuPaul,” Chu added, “We’re trying to modernize and figure out how we can create scenery that’s a little bit more flexible that can bring us into this era.”

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