When this all started…

I alleviated my lockdown anxiety by somehow becoming one of the first Yanks to present online, live, interactive theater events.

I wasn’t sure when we’d all be back in actual theaters…and that’s where I do my thing.

This dilemma drove me to the Toy Theater movement from the Victorian era where plays were performed in homes on ornate cardboard sets by a cast of colorful cardboard characters.

Toy Theater literally brought theater into people’s homes.

As a devotee of the 1968 Charlton Heston film “Planet of the Apes,” it seemed perfectly logical (and necessary) to re-imagine the classic sci-fi film into a contemporary stage play.

I crafted a tiny toy theater in my tiny Chelsea apartment with a tiny high-def cam aimed at a cutting board stage complete with proscenium, lights, orchestrations, and a dramatic bunch of characters played by a diverse cast of grapes and corks - battling for supremacy on far out settings crafted from kitchen supplies and crap from Michael’s.

I did not know…

that the themes in the original novel and screenplay (co-written by Rod Serling) would so perfectly align with the issues of this very moment - science vs. religion, crooked class systems, mistreatment of animals, and mankind’s self-perceived entitlement to everything Earth has to offer. I underscored these themes with a smattering of ditched observations from Serling’s original drafts and the novel. It’s kinda cool.