In design news, French designer Patrick Jouin unveiled his Bloom Table Lamp, a 3D-printed lamp that opens and closes like petals of a flower.

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The lighting, however, approximates what you might find in an off-Broadway house, and because the performers and band are scattered throughout the space, the sound designer has to create different mixes for each table.

WSJ: Don't Call It Dinner Theater

The stage that set designer Tom Pye has decorated includes a metal folding table you might find at a Target, a ladder, a few cane chairs, barbed wire, a gorgeous bush sculpted from metal, a birdcage and a stunning wooden bird pole, though the vulture that had been onstage before the curtain was nowhere to be found during one preview.

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New York-based designer and manufacturer Sandy Chilewich reinvented the art of the table when she came across woven vinyl, a kind of extruded yarn that could be encased in PVC.

WSJ: The Art of the Table

"Good surgeon, " nods the man sitting next to me in the cafe, appreciating the designer-draped, tanned and toned Barbie doll who is stilt walking past our table.

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