There’s been so much activity lately re the book and the show, I’m breathless. Let’s see, first the cover for Under the Poppy has been seen, tweaked, and approved – and it is gorgeous: subtle and inviting, with a naughty little puppet-y pop.  Say what one will about judging a book by its cover, it’s a fact that we all do, and why shouldn’t we?  The cover is the public face of the story, the thing that lures the eye and then the selecting hand (via shelf or mouse), so it had better be stunning, not just a pretty picture but an image that tells the story’s story in the time it takes to blink your eye.  And this one does, and I am thrilled. As soon as I can share it here, up it goes.

Next, or really concurrently, maestro Joe Stacey has sent several more compositions, underpinning themes for the films, that exist so organically that they’re less complement to the action than its true voice.

And Monika has been sketching up a storm, and we’ve just been treated to the first pass of the costumes: they are masterful, a gritty, sexy, glorious mash-up of periods and textures, an encapsulation of the artfully ragged world of the brothel.  Watching things come to life in this fashion (pun not intended, but let’s keep it anyway) is like observing an exotic flower unfurling in slow motion: transfixing, exhilarating.

The voice, the dress, the face … the Poppy is in bloom.

…and it’s official: the catalog’s out, Under the Poppy is on its way into the world. And it’s traveling in some truly excellent company, with Kelley Eskridge, Karen Joy Fowler, Holly Black, Alisdair Gray … Gavin Grant will be very pleased with your preorders, and me too, naturally.

Diane Cheklich and I are tremendously pleased and excited to announce that award-winning designer Monika Essen has joined our collaboration to bring Under the Poppy to you, a bit of fun in the dark, oh my yes. What we love so much – besides, of course, Monika’s witty and devastating eye, the emotional resonance of her designs, and her continuing refusal to do the easy thing, the comfortable, expected thing – is her aesthetic philosophy of theatrical design: “[T]hese creations are not just a backdrop to the action, but living, breathing, interactive characters in themselves.”  Which, if you were trying to describe the perfect atmosphere in which the show will, must, take place, would be it.

In the real world, our environments shape us, moment by moment, whether or not we consciously acknowledge it: enter a hospital lobby, a high school hallway, an empty bedroom, how do you feel?  Are you just the same in all of those places, or are  the construction and placement of the furnishings, the light or its lack, the smells and the sounds, components of your experience? Do some places make you feel bad? Weary? Excited, aroused? Does a half-dark room evoke your curiosity or your fear, or both? How do you feel about the smell of pine?

Monika understands all of this on a molecular level.  Welcome, Monika!

Here’s just one example of her work. [Photo from Epoque Design Studio.]

Apropos for the day, and for the daily valentine experience
of writing Under the Poppy: the great John Darnielle
and the Mountain Goats' "Love Love Love." 

king saul fell on his sword when it all went wrong,
and joseph's brothers sold him down the river for a song,
and sonny liston rubbed some tiger balm into his glove.
some things you do for money and some you do for love love love.

Good to see Diane Paulus in the paper, she who did everybody a lasting favor by bringing the one and only Punchdrunk to Boston. The question of what is art and what is entertainment and whence those Venn diagrams intersect is a vexing and eternal one; irresistible, too, maybe.  But one man’s Champagne is another man’s three buck Chuck (or Mountain Dew, ewww). is another man’s No thanks, I’m not drinking tonight. Trying to decide what other people will like enough to pay for is not a task for the wishy-washy …. And Randy Weiner is part of The Box, too, the idea of which resonates/rhymes with immersive theatre in a different way. [Thanks to DN for the young ladies.]

What a hipster, eh? And what a writer.  Saw a production of The Seagull the other night, and was struck anew by the apparent simplicity of the language, just like the simplicity of the Atlantic, until you put your toe in.

Down these stairs shall pass the finest floozies in the world ….

Venue-casting for the show.  [All photos DC.]

Were the Sisters Mulleavy available for costume design, either for the players or the audience, I’d muscle my demure way to the head of the line: Wallpaper quotes them describing their fashion as “decayed, ruined, delicate and destroyed.”  I wouldn’t mind being in line for this exhibit, either.

There is something so sexy about decay.

“What will the cover look like?” asked an impatient friend, referring to Under the Poppy. “Who’s doing it? Do you have input?”  Another friend suggested (more than once) that Toulouse-Lautrec was the only man for the job. All other suggestions, nominations, etc., will be gratefully mulled when received. Not at all easy, to put a face to a novel, I think.