Platespinner Productions
CLIENT
Situation Interactive
TECHNOLOGIES
WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, SCSS
YEAR
2020
EXTERNAL URL
Full-stack redesign for an award-winning Broadway production company led by Diana DiMenna. A clean WordPress build designed to showcase a growing portfolio of critically acclaimed theatrical and film work — from Tony-nominated productions to documentary features.
Development lead on this project at Situation Interactive.
Background
A production company building a major Broadway portfolio needed a digital presence that matched its ambition.
Plate Spinner Productions — founded by award-winning producer Diana DiMenna in 2018 — was rapidly building one of the more impressive producing portfolios on Broadway. By 2020, DiMenna’s credits already included Tony-nominated productions like What the Constitution Means to Me (also a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Three Tall Women, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, and A Doll’s House Part Two, alongside critically acclaimed work like Network, Girl From the North Country, and the documentary Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan. The company was also expanding its team, bringing on producers Brian Moreland and Rachel Sussman, and the existing website no longer reflected the scale or seriousness of the operation. Plate Spinner needed a redesign that could properly showcase a growing body of work across theatre, film, and digital media — and serve as the company’s primary professional presence for industry partners, press, and collaborators.
The company’s mission — creating dynamic stories that challenge artists and audiences to question the status quo — needed a digital platform that communicated that intent clearly and professionally.
Implementation
A portfolio-driven redesign built for a company that keeps adding credits.
The redesign was built on WordPress with a content architecture centered on the production portfolio — each show and film project structured as its own entry with production details, press coverage, and media assets organized through custom fields rather than freeform page content. The team bios section supported the company’s intrapreneurial structure, giving each producer their own profile with credits, background, and industry affiliations. The news and press layer aggregated coverage from outlets like The New York Times, Variety, Playbill, and The Washington Post, with the content management system designed so the Plate Spinner team could add new press hits, update production credits, and announce new projects without developer involvement. The frontend prioritized clean typography, generous whitespace, and responsive image handling — letting the production imagery and press quotes carry the visual weight rather than competing with decorative design elements.
The site’s structure anticipated growth — as Plate Spinner added new productions, team members, and press coverage, the content system scaled without requiring structural changes to the templates.
Results
A platform that’s carried five more years of Broadway credits — and counting.
The redesigned site launched in 2020 and has served as Plate Spinner Productions’ digital home through a sustained run of high-profile work. Since launch, the company has produced or co-produced Broadway productions including Here Lies Love (the immersive David Byrne musical at the Broadway Theatre), Sweeney Todd, How to Dance in Ohio, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, and Mike Birbiglia: The Old Man & The Pool — alongside A Wrinkle in Time at Arena Stage and continued film development including What the Constitution Means to Me on Amazon Prime. The content architecture has handled every addition without structural modification — new productions, expanded team profiles, and press coverage from every major theatre publication flow through the same CMS the team has managed independently since handoff.
A redesign built in 2020 that’s still the company’s production home five years later — through a pandemic shutdown, a Broadway reopening, and a portfolio that now spans Tony-nominated musicals, immersive theatre, and feature films.
