Venue: Theater 4. New York.
Date: June, 2001.
Client: Donna Vaughn, Director.
The script is a dark comedy, rooted in the tensions between the talent and the management of a down-and-out, nickel-and-dime, traveling carnival sideshow. A menacingly rusted yet functional clown dunk tank is needed to anchor the space, in and around which vicious stage fights would occur.
While the stage space was small, the action required the illusion of a vast carnival site, layered with tents, signage, and amusements. We created multiple entrances and exits, as well a sense of the sky beyond, with full height painted canvas hung on the theater walls. They appeared both as tents walls, and abstracted skies with the stylized scenic painting above. The centerpiece of the design was a full-functional clown dunk tank, rusty and maudlin, that rattled the nerves of even the mildest coulrophobic.
San Genaro Festival, Little Italy, New York. Barnum & Bailey, Ringling Brothers Circuses, carnival poster art.
