Much like the title of the show, this was not one of my favorites. I signed on to be the ‘season designer’ for Vital Theater Company in its new uptown home, The McGinn Cazale Theater. With no budget or technical director I managed to photograph one show of the 5 I would end up designing. The play itself centers around Kyle, about to turn 30 and not feeling particularly accomplished in his life. The story has some gen-x slacker undertones though it feels more like a proto-hipster love song. Though we are meant to sympathize with his struggle to find meaning in his directionless life, I just felt sorry for myself once the show was up – all I had to show for the many design meetings, models, drawings and conversations we had was a couple of flats painted like a wall of a rent-stabilized apartment, some furniture found around the theater and an image of socks drying on a line. It was meant to be a reference to Kyles tube sock hallucinations, but the humor of the play and that poster are forever over my head.

Sadly, this would set the tone for future work in New York, only overcome once I started doing participatory theater, immersive event design and the occasional site-specific community theater project 5 years later.

Vital Theatre Company
McGinn Cazale Theater
Directed by Steve Sunderlin
2005