Lost in Arizona (Work in Progress)

A drawn musical journey
Premiere: November 2027
Running time: approx. 1h15
All audiences from age 9

Summary:

Two artists, Thomas and Tommy, set off for Arizona with two dreams, two projects. One wants to adapt a graphic novel for the stage, following Tucson’s music scene; the other aims to document the history of American popular music. Two parallel quests, two mirrors of the same longing for America.

On site, both projects begin to unravel as reality pushes back: the comic-book author withdraws, the musicians keep their distance, the desert remains foreign.

Back in France, rather than giving up, they turn loss into a promise: from the meeting of two unfinished projects a third is born—their shared double, Lost in Arizona. Each becomes the other’s reflection, drawing the adventure their companion did not live.

Two parallel narratives emerge, burlesque and poetic: two desert Quixotes, two imaginary heroes told by their ill-fated Sancho Villas.

On stage, these comic books are projected, handled and animated live thanks to the dessinoscope, a handcrafted video-looping device that creates a true paper animation cinema in real time. Live music blends original compositions with influences from the Desert Sound, this fusion of Americana and Mexican sonorities specific to Tucson.

Halfway between a drawn concert, object theatre and an oniric road movie, Lost in Arizona stages a double journey: that of two artists and their paper doubles.

Two projects set out for Tucson, and a shared failure opens a turning point: telling the other.

Thomas and Tommy meet on 21 September 2023, on the plane taking them to Tucson. The encounter continues on site, through a journey lived in parallel. Back home, another path takes shape: merging the projects, drawing the other, inventing for this companion a journey that reality did not allow. The road shifts: this is how Lost in Arizona is born.

Two intertwined adventures unfold in parallel, and the comic books become the stage’s blueprint.

The show is written in two movements: first, a documentary testimony tracing each artist’s creative drive up to an impasse; then a cross-woven fiction in which each draws the other into a burlesque, poetic adventure. Two parallel narratives emerge—autonomous and porous—destined to meet, clash and intertwine.

A paper cinema is assembled live, and the live music composes the desert between the images.

Lost in Arizona takes the form of a live cinema, crafted from comic books. The images are handled and animated in full view thanks to the dessinoscope: a handcrafted device built into a suitcase laid flat, combining a video screen, a camera and paper elements, whose layers are recorded through superimposition to produce a composite image projected live.

On stage, the story moves between drawing, manipulation, projection and live music. Sounds are built in real time with a looper, on the same footing as the images.