What isn't NYC

before we talk about what is

Thank you for your patience while I learn how to write more clearly…I am super struggling with making one point at a time, so….

…maybe the following will not seem like an odd little tidbit of a thought to you, who perhaps prefers a single thought in an essay; but to me these little mini ideas on the design process seem oddly disconnected from the whole.

The ‘whole’ in this case is the set design for the 1975 play Checking Out by the actor Allen Swift. The play is not famous, never was, and never will be - except among set designers. A few hundred of us have tried our hands at designing it. (I would love to know what the “success rate” was.) The show has one charismatic protagonist and the real love of his life is his apartment. About ten minutes into the show we can move onto the other loves of his life - his wife and kids, their kids and his career, his city, etc.

But the first ten? we have to love that apartment as much as him, and we have to understand why everyone who walks in says,…