Mumbai: David Rockwell will design the sets for the 81st Academy Awards telecast, producer Laurence Mark and executive producer Bill Condon announced. This will be Rockwell’s first involvement with the Oscar show.

"Rockwell is an innovator who possesses the outstanding combination of truly first hand knowledge of the Kodak Theatre and superb design work in a variety of realms, including film and theatre," said Mark and Condon in a joint statement.  

"We’re pleased to be collaborating with someone whose talents are so diverse."

Rockwell Group’s credits include set design for the upcoming Broadway productions Catch Me If You Can and Houdini, as well as the sets for the stage productions Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Rocky Horror Show.  The firm also did production design work for the 2004 film Team America: World Police.

Other projects designed by Rockwell Group include a freestanding building for Cirque du Soleil at Walt Disney World in Florida; the Elinor Bunin-Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center in New York; the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, scheduled to open in 2009; plus dozens of restaurants and several hotels.  The firm is also involved with the master plan of Coney Island, including Steeplechase Plaza.

Rockwell Group is the 2008 recipient of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Interior Design.