Conceit: Design Ideas

 

You Can’t Take It With You Conceit Statement

Atmospheres: Organized Chaos, the Curio Shop of Artists, the Gregarious Madness of Creativity

Organized chaos

  • There is a method to the madness.
    • Everything they do has a purpose even if the purpose is simple curiosity
  • Everything has a place, even if the place seems odd to the average person
  • There is a definable logic to their living space, their clothes, their hair etc.
    • We need to discover what that is
  • This is a home to creativity

The Curio Shop of Artists

 

  • Both modernity and antiquity exist in this play at the same time

 

    • Creative pursuits of the past and the present sit on top of each other
  • There is a myriad of artistic interests coexisting at the same time
    • Ideas that some would find conflicting exist alongside and in combination with each other
  • The feeling that when you walk in the space, when you meet these people, they could help you find any bizzare thing from any point in time you could ask for

The Gregarious Madness of Creativity

  • The whole family, and their space has a certain madness to it, but its affable and friendly
  • Expect the unexpected but the unexpected is usually beautiful and delightfully strang
  • The feeling that untethered genius lives here, and that the characters are not quite of this earth
    • Friendly, distracted artistic spirits
  • Creation for the joy of creation
  • Slightly dangerous but exciting for it
    • Like a jenga game

Important Basic Shapes: Verticality, Mosaics

Verticality

  • Their lives are so full that they have to use space in a creative way
    • Spencer’s
  • A lack of groundedness
    • Precarious stacks of things
    • The characters themselves are constantly in the clouds of their own mind
      • Dancing on precipice
  • Layer upon layer of ideas, passions, obsession
    • Like archaeological digs
    • Each layer represents a period
      • Picasso’s blue period etc.

Mosaics

 

  • Many disparate pieces fashioned to create something larger than the sum of its parts

 

    • Each piece is unique, an artwork all its own
    • But there  is a place for it in the mosiac
  • Many of the shards probably wouldn’t fit well in other places
    • But they are so welcome here and there is always room for more pieces.

Important Verbs: To embrace, to flourish

To Embrace

  • The show should always feel like it’s drawing the audience in, seeking to embrace more people
  • The sycamores embrace each other, and all others

To Flourish

  • This is a place of fertility, where ideas and people, and love grow
  • The Sycamore families is always growing larger, and people bloom under their acceptance and attention

 

DESIGN PRESENTATION

You Can’t Take It With You Pres.