Behind The Scenes At The Martha Stewart Show

Got back late last night from the whirlwind trip to NYC. In case you’re as curious as I was about what it would be like at the Martha Stewart Show, here are a few photos from yesterday.

My Editor for Made to Play, Jennifer Urban-Brown, and my publicist, Jennifer Campaniolo, came in from Boston. Here we are, about to go into the studio.

Here’s a shot of part of the set once we were inside.

The craft we did from Made to Play was the Scrap Wood Dollhouse and furniture. Here I am with producer, Lenore Welby, as she acts the part of Martha for a practice run, while the cameras figure out their shots and she gives me last-minute coaching. (Lenore is awesome.)

After practice, I got to have make-up. Nice!

Then finally, when it was time, they led me to the side entrance of the show-in-progress, during a commercial break, and took my place behind the craft table. Then I finally got to meet Martha in person. She walked over to me and we got to talk for about 20 seconds, then started taping. It was a fascinating mix of playing, concentrating on what I was supposed to do, reacting to surprises, and trying to pay attention to cue cards being waved near the floor five feet in front of us. It went by very fast. Afterwards, I got to chat with Martha for another 20 seconds or so. She was super cool and very nice. Then someone with a huge camera took our picture together, and I was pretty much done.

Once I packed up all of my dollhouses and furniture, (I got to keep the dollhouse Martha made, too!) and said goodbye to everyone, we headed to the airport for the night flight back home.

If you want to tune in to the show, the air date is November 29, 2011. The entire episode was an at-home dad special, so there were 90 dads and 100 kids in the audience, which was totally great!

Special thanks to my mom for coming along with me on the trip, and for taking all of these photos!

UPDATE: If you’d like to watch my segment on the show, you can watch it here.

23 Responses
  1. Wow Joel! What an experience!!! Congratulations for being in Martha’s show!!! That must be something!… I must confess that I am not thrilled by her as a person, although I do admire her, and I love-love-love to die the show and, of course, the magazine! And these are the two things a miss the most here in The Netherlands: watch the show and buy the magazine for a normal price (here it is 9 euros!… I don’t understand why they don’t have international subscription…).
    Congratulations again, boy, because this is a real hit!

  2. Hey Joel- how cool! I love the backstage pix and inside info. Congratulations and I can’t wait to see it!!! Remind us to set our dvrs in plenty of time. – Jules Means

  3. How exciting Joel! Can’t wait to see the episode and congratulations on the release of Made to Play! It really is terrific. Well done!

  4. Love your blog! Congrats on your book and the appearance onMartha. Very impressive! Found your site through Family Fun Mag. I did the October badge. I’ll be back!

  5. Dianne

    You are so very talented! I love your City Art, especially Paris! Congrats on the Martha show. Would love to see it. Will watch Nov. 29th! You’re kids are adorable and make me ache for a little one! Our two are 20 and 27. Grown up! I would love to see you make Christmas Tags, (printable.) That would be fun for your kids and for the kid in all of us! Thanks! Dianne

    1. Thanks for the kind comment Dianne! The Martha Stewart show actually aired Nov 29, 2011. So you can watch it now right here if you’d like!

      I just updated this post and added the year in the date. Thanks for reminding me.

      Also, I do have printable holiday gift tags! Here you go!

      Thanks again,
      Joel