These pieces are for fun- as if I wasn't already having fun. You will notice that they largely have a theatrical connection. Nutcrackers are toys with a theatrical character; the animation built into them lets them "act." I want to build more: Falstaff, Pierrot, Rigoletto, Richard III; Bette Davis in All About Eve. The little theatres have their germ in a beloved toy of my and my brother's childhood. We could "cram/ Within this wooden O"- actually, lithographed sheet metal- stories we acted out through the little plastic figures that came with the theatre. If this sounds formative, it was. Before I was a furniture maker I was an actor, and it may be that the main thing I've kept from that enjoyable pursuit is a sense of play. That's what these are about.

Bottom: I feel an exposition of sleep come upon me.

Hamlet & Yorick: "I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." Yorick is equipped to respond. Will he break his three-and-twenty year silence? It's not in the script...