A birthday dinner was organized in 1985 around the projections made for the Chicago Opera that fall. Chase had always envisioned a room that would constantly change identity. First it was a bedroom that could become a forest, a moment by the ocean , filled with fog, etc. and that you could program with a few buttons. The birthday was an extension of the same idea, more simply designed. The table was set with a painting drop cloth and the flowers seemed to grow out of a bird’s nest from the center of the table. Three sides of the studio were completely cleared and folding chairs set up. The dinner guests were some very close friends in--Composer Conrad Susa with his lover, librettist Richard Street, the poet Harold Norse, artist Vance Martin (who had worked on the projections for the Lyric opera and his friend Whitney, Nora Norden, a staple in the language department of the SF Opera, and Robert Suhr (Chase’s former lover)with his wife Heather Bradley and her son. The atmospheres were accompanied by a sound score of wind chimes, wind, birds, and the ocean. The room changed from a forest to a gold palace, a cloud filled sky and the ballroom at Ludwig's palace Herrenchiemsee. There was also a moment that showed slides of Chase's childhood that had been transformed into collages.
