Sprawling 'Manhattan' springs to life in Santa Fe

SANTA FE — Tucked away behind a busy street overrun by strip malls and fast-food joints, winding past the graffiti-splattered studios of a local art college, lies a dusty road with a chain-link gate to another era.

It's the 1940s in Los Alamos, N.M., and the nation's best and brightest nuclear physicists have been assembled for what is known as the Manhattan Project, a government-funded operation to build the first atomic bomb. Standing in for that bygone time is this 11-acre plot of once-condemned land, where WGN America's Manhattan, the network's second run at original programming (following last spring's Salem), is shooting the final episodes of its first season (Sunday, 9 ET/PT).

What was once an expansive, interconnected Army hospital built in the '40s has been transformed into a bustling World War II-era town, where dust billows behind humming vintage cars, clotheslines sway in what momentary breeze the desert offers, and extras armed with parcels and baby carriages stroll past faded white picket fences as the cameras roll. "It's like we've created our own little Colonial Williamsburg, except instead of churning butter, our characters are inventing a doomsday device," says creator Sam Shaw (Masters of Sex).

Through his research for another series that never came to fruition, Shaw became fascinated by the Manhattan Project, a controversial event that marked the "birth of a bunch of political and social problems we're grappling with now," he says. What especially intrigued him were the concepts of family and secrets during that period, "and the gulf that forms between people and relationships when they're hiding things from each other."

In Manhattan's first episode, scientists and their families arrive at the remote, military-run community of Los Alamos, unaware of what exactly the physicists will embark upon while there. Over the course of the 13-episode first season whose time frame is uncertain, the show explores "what it might look like to sit across from your spouse at the dinner table and not be able to talk about the fact that you're inventing this weapon that could either save the world or destroy it," Shaw says.

The biggest obstacle in mounting the series was creating a fully realized world on a limited budget and tight pre-production schedule, says director and executive producer Thomas Schlamme (The West Wing). "It's basic cable — it's not Game of Thrones — but the hope for the show is that it has cinematic storytelling and we're capable of doing that on the budget we have," he says.

The Renaissance woman tasked with the brunt of that work is production designer Ruth Ammon (Heroes), who leads a team of carpenters, painters, graphic artists and prop people in crafting the overall look of the show — a challenge she describes as a "designer's dream."

Wandering through a maze of sparsely lit offices and labs, the attention to detail can be quite staggering. Shelves are lined with authentic physics and engineering books from the era; walls are plastered with recreations of propaganda posters, bearing warnings against female spies and sharing secrets in the workplace; and desktops are adorned with ashtrays brimming with burned cigarettes. While most props come from local antique shops or eBay, the cast and crew are invited to add personal touches to the set decorations.

For example, on the walls of the military barracks, pinup girl posters and vintage postcards are sprinkled among old photographs of mothers, fathers, grandparents and relatives of the Manhattan family. "You realize everyone has a connection to this point in history, whether you know it or not," Ammon says. And rather than re-creating specific locations or designs according to black-and-white images and history books, Ammon aims to construct an authentic atmosphere that doesn't distract from the characters. After all, "you can work on the scenery and build the biggest sets, but unless you're telling the story, you're missing the point," she says.

Her labor of love is deeply appreciated by actors such as as John Benjamin Hickey (The Big C), who plays Frank Winter, the misunderstood leader of a group of scientists within the project.

"It's crazy. It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone," he says, legs propped up on his character's desk, in jeans and a white shirt. "I'll be doing a scene and I'll see the background actors walking by from that time and place. The atmosphere is so tangible, you feel like you're breathing the real air."

A chalkboard scribbled with seemingly endless calculations towers behind him as he opens a desk drawer, pulling out a calendar from 1943 and remarking on Frank's Indiana Jones-esque hat. "It's the most specific, detail-oriented climate I've ever worked in," Hickey says. "At the end of the day, when you get to put on those clothes and that hat, you feel like so much of the work has been done for you, because of the attention to period detail. For an actor, it's like a dream come true."