Road Case

It sounds like someone who is has a chronic tendency toward "road rage", but the term is much more benign. A road case is the box that equipment travels in from town to town. It is very much a part of show business. A road case can hold sound equipment, lighting instruments, props or in my case wooden people.

The standard in road cases used to be Anvil cases. Anvil being the name of the company. I have a few myself. When I used to say this is my Anvil case, people would assume I was traveling with anvils. Anvil cases are trunks that clasp with a heavy latches and are edged with aluminum strips and rounded corners. They have a very classic "trunk" look. They are built to take the abuse that would otherwise destroy what is inside.

Pelican Cases are now the standard, I have a few myself. They are lighter but they are just as strong as Anvil makes, a little cheaper and unlike Anvil they are water proof. There are claims that the case would float if a plane had to ditch in the ocean, and could provide you with a flotation device. My thought is, if you are counting on your luggage to save you in a plane accident, you are an pathological optimist. Pelican cases don't look like trunks, they look like huge camera cases. The only problem is, they are molded so you can not get a custom size built, you have to make do with the sizes they think you will need. Anvil will customize a size and shape for just exactly what you need.

I have always had a fondness for cases. Probably started when I played the Saxophone in high School band. I was fascinated by a case that was designed just to hold a Saxophone. to me nothing says show business like a backstage trunk. It is one of the reasons I loved the Broadway set of "The Two and Only" which was a bunch of cases. In fact one of my prized possessions is Edgar Bergen's road case/backstage trunk.

The Bergen trunk is as big as a custom designed steamer trunk. I have no idea what it carried but it is big enough to comfortably hold three puppets the size of Bob. In fact I can get in in and comfortably close the lid, and I have. (When I first got the trunk I was trying to get in touch with my "inner Charlie McCarthy".) Bergen's name and logo are painted in gold across the top of the trunk, and he inadvertently autographed it. There are a lot of travel stickers still attached. One sticker for passage on the Queen Mary he signed his signature and checked "Not needed in Voyage".

How I got possession of the Bergen Trunk is a story for a future blog. Perhaps on a "request" day.

So when my Helen Hayes chairs arrived last week they came inside another gift. It is a road case used by the Blue Man Group. It is about 5 feet long or tall. It stands on rollers when upright. It is about 28 inches square. Don't know what it would have carried, knowing the Blue Man Group it could have been marshmallows. But Steve managed to snag a road cases that fit my chairs. It is cool to have a trunk from the Blue Man. Probably more people know who they are and will be more impress than they would with the Bergen trunk. The Blue Man trunk will immediately be used as a coffin for a Johnson Halloween exhibit.

I don't know of many people who would get excited about a big trunk, but I was the kid who always played with the box the toy came in at Christmas. This is really a great case. Some day it will be on the road with the "Two and Only", I wish we had possession of it when we were touring last year.

As you were,
Jay

Wednesday - "Retrospective of the Future"