Though not a direct adaptation, the production on Rules Of The Game is a different beast entirely. is based on Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 absurdist play Six Characters in Search of an Author and combines Arsham’s explosive visuals and design with Pharrell’s music (as played by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra) and dancers choreographed by Bokaer. If it sounds like grueling work to get three distinct creative visions to work cohesively in one production, that’s because it was: “We’ve worked on this a very long time so we’ve had the time to experiment to see what might work and what won’t,” says Arsham.
Arsham notes that Pharrell created an entire demo album worth of music that was then edited down to be converted to an orchestra by composer David Campbell, and that getting his visuals to succinctly match Bokaer’s choreography were only some of the difficulties faced when putting the production together. He added that the team would be working on the project until it premieres (which as of now, it has). He was very happy with how the production was turning out. “Anyone who knows Pharrell’s work and music will identify this as Pharrell but at the same time it’s very different from pop music,” says Arsham.
Arsham first met Pharrell Williams when he went back to Miami after graduating Cooper Union. As he remembers it, he already considered Pharrell to be famous with The Neptunes already being a production team at the tip of the entire music industry’s tongue. But Pharrell wasn’t yet a household name, and a friendship and creative camaraderie started developing between the two. But it wasn’t until Arsham created molds of the Casio MT-50 keyboard that Williams began recording music with that an official collaborative relationship was born.