We Don't Even Have a Barn

Know the old saw "I've got a barn, let's put on a show!"? Well, this time we don't even have a barn:


The School of Drama presents "The Commedia Project."

It's amazing how much something can change from inception to execution. More than a year ago I sat in a meeting where we were trying to figure out how to make the prospect of a "styles piece" more interesting. My boss said "What about a period Commedia Wagon?" and we were off.

What we've finished with isn't so much what I think we saw in our heads back then, and the "period wagon" well, as you can see, is something else entirely.

It is closer than it was along the way though. This project had an earlier incarnation where the trailer became an antique truck. After putting about a month or so into that solution we changed designers - and concepts, moving somewhat closer to the original intent.

Somewhat.

In many ways we really haven't delivered this time. What the designer had in mind starts here:



But we were a little bit bigger, and then we decided it needed to be "over the road" legal, and we wind up a little heavier, and, and, and...

So we were unable to get the bike on the front to work (the trailer had so much momentum that you would turn the bike and the rig would just keep on going, folding the bike up under the unit as it went, oops). The last 10 days or so has been a never ending opera of getting the thing to steer. I think in the end it will be workable, but I am a little disappointed that we weren't able to properly deliver. Although for the first time I remembered today that when we planned the darn thing I had the project calendared with like an extra 6-8 weeks so we would be able to adapt and get the bugs out, only to lose it all to the previous concept. Maybe if we'd had the time we started with we would have delivered more on target. Or maybe it didn't matter. Still...

So if you're around town, we're taking our show on the road to Station Square, South Side Works, and to Heartwood Acres (oh, and we'll do some shows on campus too):

(click to enlarge)

Interestingly, just about 20 years ago I was involved in a Commedia project when I went to CMU. Our approach wasn't quite so elaborate:


I guess the program has changed just a little bit in a generation.