A landscape of discarded possessions set out for pickup on a big trash day in a suburb of Philadelphia on the Main Line provides the setting and the raw materials to create the multiple locations and props needed to tell the story of Y York’s adaptation of Jerry Spinelli’s Eggs.
A stepped platform littered with junk and painted to suggest the winter that has just passed and the spring that is emerging. A painted scrim threatens a scary forest and promises blossoms and hope. An unwanted clothes rack, a beaded curtain and some blankets become a fortuneteller’s living room. An abandoned van becomes a
bedroom cocoon for her daughter. A broken picture frame sitting on an old chair creates a window to a young boy’s bedroom. A retired wooden shipping crate and a pair of artificial shrubs in garden containers suggest his grieving grandmother’s front stoop. An old ironing board stocked with old appliances that await repair is the workshop of a wise and kind mentor who gently tries to mend more that broken lamps and toasters. All of these unwanted things became needed and recycled until they, having serving their storytelling function are discarded by our weary travelers who then pull away the forest, on their way to Philadelphia, the sunrise and healing.James F. Pyne, Jr.
Director of Design
March 24, 2009
the Eggs set:
