A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Three houses stood at the center of the design for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: the home of Senex, the lively brothel of Lycus, and the worn, modest dwelling of Erronius. Each façade was rendered in a heightened, cartoon-like style that matched the show’s farcical humor while still carrying echoes of ancient Rome. The goal was to create a stage picture that instantly communicated comedy but remained rooted in a classical world.

To strike this balance, I looked to Greco-Roman pottery and decorative motifs as inspiration. Columns and carved details found their way into the architecture, but they were treated with a playful exaggeration. The result was a design that nodded to history while embracing the show’s irreverent tone. The humor in Sondheim’s musical is quick and relentless, and the set needed to provide both clarity and flexibility—spaces that could anchor the comic situations while transforming easily as the farce unfolded.

Each house held its own personality. Senex’s home carried a sense of domestic order ready to unravel, Lycus’s façade leaned into flamboyance and theatricality, and Erronius’s dwelling offered contrast in its simplicity. Together, the trio formed a visual shorthand for the tangled relationships and chaotic schemes at the heart of the story.

What tied the design together was its sense of exaggeration—architectural features pushed just far enough to feel humorous without tipping into parody. That blend of sophistication and whimsy created a world where mistaken identities, disguises, and comic chases felt perfectly at home. The set invited audiences to laugh with the characters while appreciating the historical textures beneath the comedy, letting both farce and antiquity share the stage.