A Note from Assistant Director Juan Hernandez

Joseph Cornell’s life, the World of Cornell, is a landscape rich in images, personalities and dreams. Through this vast palette of concepts we have taken these ideas and brought them to life through the performance. In our production of Hotel Cassiopeia, we have taken the idea of the Cornell boxes and his eccentric form of art and have created and advanced the development of the characters to fit a more clearly defined idea of a Cornell art piece. Through the randomness of the items found in Cornell’s boxes, it can be seen that they bring into being a state of harmonious unity and equality of significance. With this idea, we bring to life the world of Joseph Cornell and are introduced to people who were important to him.

Throughout the rehearsal period, we have created a very comprehensible set of characters. From Joseph’s journey through his life to the imaginative creation of the Astronomer, Herbalist and Pharmacist, we get a colorful canvas in which Joseph lived.