We’ve come up with quite a few interesting names for our upcoming mobile theater, but we’re having a hard time deciding. Want to help out by taking a quick survey?

Click here to take the survey.  It’ll be fun!

Los Angeles is a city of cars and highways. Our neighbors are the people driving ahead of us in the fast lane and our idea of a close-knit community is a parking lot with too few parking spaces. The city is defined by it’s mobility. We are what we drive. We are the traffic.

So how do art and theater fit into such a place?  Before any grand artistic visions can be fulfilled, a live event must first entice people off their couches, through the gridlock, into a convenient parking spot, and into the venue… Unless, of course, the venue can drive itself!

So yes – we’ve decided to embrace the auto-driven nature of L.A. Culture and take to the road in our very own stage on wheels. There’s a long tradition of theatre companies traveling from town to town, staging shows from the back of a wagon. Why not introduce a modern-day, Twitter-enabled  version that can traverse the sprawl of Los Angeles and bring our brand of art-making to its diverse communities?

We’ll be able to reach audiences who wouldn’t normally make the trip to the theatre or gallery opening, and we won’t be thwarted by high rents and topsy-turvy real estate markets. We can catch people off-guard, frame our work in an unusual context and get people to experience art in a cool new way.

So if you find yourself in your car, stuck behind a big white trailer, please don’t fly into a road rage. It might just be us, hauling a big load of trouble.

Here are a few things I learned while towing a large trailer from Orange County to Los Angeles. When taken out of context, they can also be construed as charming life lessons.

1. It’s easier to move forward than to back up.
2. When turning in a new direction, let others know and don’t move too fast.
3. Momentum is your friend.
4. Plan a route with as few turns as possible.
5. If you’re in a tight spot, ask others to help guide you out.
6. You need a #10 wrench for the bolt where you attach the grounding wire of the 4-plug to 7-plug adapter.

If you can find the metaphor for that last one, let me know.

The Trade City mobile stage being lowered for the first time by fabricator Raymond Barré of RB Components in Stanton, CA.