How cameras unlocked the modern relevance of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ on Broadway

Tony Award-nominated director Kip Williams shares why his production, starring Sarah Snook, reimagines Oscar Wilde's Victorian novel as a high-tech solo show.

When Australian writer and director Kip Williams decided to adapt Oscar Wilde’s 1890 provocative classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, now on Broadway starring Succession Emmy Award winner Sarah Snook, he knew from the get-go it’d be a solo show.

Going it alone, after all, is an evocative way to convey that people contain multitudes — good, bad, and ugly. That theme beats at the heart of Wilde’s novel.

Williams, a Broadway rookie now up for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play, also knew cameras would co-star in his take on the story. Audiences go on a wild and visually trippy ride as Snook, also Tony-nominated for Best Actress in a Play, portrays all 26 characters. She acts opposite camera operators and pre-recorded projections of herself throughout the fast-paced production.

“It’s a story entirely about how we perform our identity to those around us,” Williams said of Dorian Gray. “It’s an act that we are doing today, in 2025, in an unprecedented, abstract way, because of our mobile phones and because of social media. The camera, for me, became the key to unlock the contemporary resonance of this story.”

Williams, 38, has made video a signature element of his theatre work in Australia, where The Picture of Dorian Gray debuted in 2020 with Eryn Jean Norvill performing. The plot concerns a young man’s dark bargain to remain physically youthful while a hidden portrait of him reflects his grotesque moral decay.

“What drew me as a director to the story was how prophetic it seemed,” Williams added. “It’s as if Oscar Wilde was looking into the future and conceived of a world that would become obsessed with youth, obsessed with beauty, and obsessed with the individual.”

Snook, in her Broadway debut, is the star attraction. “The most challenging part is making sure I’m firing on all cylinders all the time,” she told New York Theatre Guide at the show’s opening night at the Music Box Theatre. But it’s not only a demanding piece for her.

“[The show is] built as a one-woman show, but it's not,” Snook had said when she won the Olivier Award for her performance in London in 2024. “The [camera] crew are on stage with me all the time, every night, and they are a vital and constant support.”

Williams concurred. “For all intents and purposes, it’s an ensemble piece. This incredible ensemble of crew pivots and dances around Sarah,” he said. Williams described the choreography of the show’s many working parts as “the most complex and challenging piece of direction” he’s ever done.

His brief summary of what goes on during each performance gives an idea of the scope: “There are several hundred camera edits in the piece that the stage manager is calling and the video team is mixing and the camera operators are framing,” Williams explained. “I have been so lucky to work with an incredible crew who really embraced the love letter to storytelling that the production is.”

Crew member Benjamin Sheen acknowledged the constant rigor required. “Cameras are very unforgiving because they show exactly what's happening,” he said. “It's very hard to hide things or hide mistakes, so it’s definitely a very disciplined, precise process.”

For camera crew member Dara Woo, a TV and film actress, the show has taught her the fine art of working a 100-pound Steadicam. “I don't want to exaggerate, but it feels very heavy,” she said. “I had to learn a lot about framing. When people say, ‘Oh, you're doing a close-up,’ now I realize what that means.”

Tony-nominated scenic and costume designer Marg Horwell echoed the notion that cameras are all-seeing and had to tailor her designs as such. “You can see buttons, you can see stitches,” she said. “You can see tiny details in paintings.”

On the other hand, the cameras also create effects built to remain a mystery. “Hopefully there will be multiple moments where people are like, ‘How did they do that?’” said clew, a camera operator.

Cameras are conduits to such stage magic, if you ask Williams. “Theatremakers and storytellers have always used technology to create imaginary worlds for audiences,” he said. “They used fire to create shadow puppets millennia ago. Technology is always going to be part of storytelling.”

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Gillian Russo contributed reporting to this story.

Photo credit: Sarah Snook in The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Photos by Marc Brenner)