The Cloud Sketcher

The Cloud Sketcher is a passionate tale of love, war and art that ranges from the icefields of the Arctic Circle at the dawn of the last century to the ruthless world of 1920’2 New York.In a tiny Finnish village, Esko Vaananen mourns the death of his mother, who died in the same fire that so horribly scarred his face. At the brink of despair, he has a vision of an impossibly tall building rising gracefully from a frozen lake, disappearing into the clouds above. This “cloud sketcher,” or skyscraper, sparks Esko’s livelong quest for beauty. He becomes an architect, believing that if he can create something of unparalleled loveliness, surely he will be worthy of his true love, Katerina. This obsessive desire causes Esko to risk everything time and again: as a reluctant hero in the Finnish civil war; as a laborer on the treacherous high steel of a Manhattan riveting gang; and finally, as a man accused of murdering the husband of the woman he loves.

Performed by Simon Jones