Only a Paper Moon

I’m fascinated by the way a vision can evolve due to happy accident. On Monday, I suddenly had a revelation about the paper lantern Blanche buys. She calls it a Chinese lantern, and I’ve always pictured it as red, cylindrical, and accordian-folded. But I suddenly realized that if it were light-colored instead of red, and a globe shape, that it would be the Paper Moon she sings about (hanging over the Cardboard Sea that is Stella and Stanley’s bed). And the very day Alexia, our props designer, was set to buy 12 from a mainland company, I caught her just in time. We got 12 lavendar globe-shaped ones. They were sent express mail and arrived on Thursday. At the same time, I have been searching for what the music at the very top and very end of the show should be. So now it is an instrumental version of “Paper Moon.”