Tea Cart

You wouldn't think to look at it, that it would take so long to complete. But there are always complications. Especially something that is supposed to be as flexible as this.

There are only a few things that the tea cart has to do.

One, it has to roll across the stage. So, it has wheels. Actually, it has real wheels underneath and "fake" wheels on the side. The fake wheels are supposed to look like old-fashioned spoke wheels, the kind you'd find on a piece of furniture back in the 1700s in France which wasn't supposed to carry an incredible amount of weight on it. The "real" wheels are supposed to carry about 100 pounds of weight (depending on the size of the occupant), so there's a furniture dolly underneath to do the real work.



Two, it has to have room inside for an actor, somewhere between seventy and one hundred pounds - depending on who is playing the part of Chip, the tea cup. The actor sits on the little seat, facing forward, with his/her head sticking out of the top. (No, I haven't cut out the hole for the actor's head yet.) The actor's feet must fit in the space between the seat and the front of the tea cart. The top of the cart must allow the actor to get in, and must allow the actor's head to come through it.



I thought about creating a split lid which would fold together with a center cutout, but that seems a bit difficult to support along the seam, so instead it'll probably just be a single cutout for the head, with a tablecloth to hide the hole. The most important thing is that it can't be obvious that there is a person's body stuffed inside the tea cart. The plan is to use mirrors to make it look like there isn't someone inside the cart. I'm still working on that part.