Comedy in Crisis

Sarah provided a confident and heart-warming in-depth look at what it takes to turn language into action. She helped explain how we can begin with an idea or philosophical goal and turn it into realizable change.

Restore Humanity's ability to effect change starts from their beautifully crafted mission statement, which is to restore humanity:

"...by taking the opportunity to help whenever, wherever, and however we can – not dictating the terms of our assistance, but responding to the needs of the individuals and communities we are serving."

  From this mission, Restore Humanity developed a list of core values that helped create small, concrete, realizable accomplishments.

CORE VALUES 

1. Golden Rule

2. All About People

3. Intensive Cross-Cultural Collaboration

4. Prudent Use of Funds & Resources

5. Total Transparency

6. Strategic Fluidity & Patience

7. Drop the Cape

Sarah's talk challenged artists to think like activists and develop both a clear vision and a mission in order to promote positive change in the world.  

She also challenged us by asking that we give back humanity to those who are on the receiving end of an activist's work. She challenged us to "drop the cape" along with our savior mentality.

This is where poverty porn comes into play. 

You see, the first core value Sarah discussed with us was The Golden Rule: 

Golden Rule:  We treat others the way we want to be treated.  This means avoiding sensationalizing and perpetuating misconceptions and negative or clichéd stereotypes.  The best way to restore and preserve humanity is to treat the people we serve with the dignity and respect we would want shown to us if we were similarly situated.  Being compassionate requires empathy and kindness—not pity. 

The practical application of this value is Restore Humanity's commitment to not falling into the trap of poverty porn. 

What is poverty porn? Poverty porn includes any media which exploits the condition of the poor or the suffering in order to generate a sense of pity. This is usually done for the purpose of either selling news media, increasing charitable donations, or to generate public support for the activist's cause. 

Debates and examples of the issue of poverty porn can be found at:

One.org: Five Reasons Poverty Porn Empowers the Wrong Person

Aidthoughts.org: What is 'poverty porn' and why does it matter for development?

Doc Soup: "Poverty Porn" and a Proposal That Could End it Once and For All

Clearly, poverty porn is a hotly debated topic in the field of activism, but it's a phrase that is not commonly tossed around outside that community. We as artist were immediately interested in hearing more about the topic. 

So, Sarah showed us how instead she attempts to use media to highlight the humanity of the communities and people she works with. As you can see in the many picture above from Restore Humanity's website, she does not try to illicit pity for the children who stay at the James Christopher Opot Children's Center, a Kenyan Children's Home that is Restore Humanity's foundation project. Instead, she shows them simply as people: funny, silly, playful, loving, young, vibrant people. 

So, what does Poverty Porn have to do with Comedy?

In comedy, we do not necessarily look to portray people as much as stereotypes. We're interested in portraying qualities of humanity as opposed to humans.

Above, you will see one of our performers, Aly, preparing to portray Kim Kardashian. We clearly are not interested in portraying her honestly as a human. We are interested in taking the image of Kim Kardashian and pushing it to its most absurd extremes in order to make a point about our culture and to illicit a response from our audience. 

In order to produce poignant satire, we attempt to use exaggeration. We attempt to take the everyday challenges that we face in the political, social, and economic worlds and turn up the volume all the way to from 1 to 10.

This is why we at Off-Color chose to put up a live-action cartoon: a cartoon's very essence is about taking a caricature of humanity and blowing it humorously out of proportion.   

While cartoon is by no means poverty porn, it did bring up a question of the ethics of exaggeration. 

In the discussion following Sarah's talk, we artists had to ask ourselves a question. 

Where is the line between exaggeration for artistic purposes and the exaggeration used in 'poverty porn'? What is the difference?

Many people argued that the difference was intent. If one was exaggerating and hyperbolizing a child's suffering for money than it was ethically questionable, but if I simply was exaggerating because I wanted to evoke laughter, then it was okay. 

But then what about artist-activists who use exaggeration in order to help them get a political point across, as we do in satire? Is that not also the intention of some charities who simply want to spread word about the crisis of poverty in the world? 

Somebody mentioned the idea that those charities were in the wrong because they were turning the children's suffering into a product. 

But is art not about taking the abstract and turning it into a concrete product so that it can be spread or even 'sold' to a wider audience? 

Are the abused puppies that Sarah McLachlan sings about exaggerations with a positive artistic intent attached or are they to being manipulated into products in an offensive way? 

Is it simply the unfortunate who does not deserve to be exaggerated or is exaggerated fortune dehumanizing as well?

Where is the line?

Was it our portrayal of Kim Kardashian as a booby sex doll? 

(Photo Credit: Jon Kellam)

We could not come to a clear answer.

The festival had just begun and already we had stumbled upon a massive gray area that cut through artists and activists a like and quickly the room exploded in debate.

Soon enough, we were talking about the idea that one cannot retain private control over an image--it's meaning is up for public manipulation. We began to argue about whether social media has allowed for greater human connectivity or has alienated an entire generation from the world in front of them. Does Instagram help ideas spread or does it over simplify the crises we face today? 

I still don't know where the line is regarding exaggeration. I don't know what determines whether an piece of art is a product or whether a product is a piece of art. 

But I do know that these are conversations that our worth having and that these fierce and explosive dialogues are proof that more activists should attend festivals for the arts. 

Activists can provide the fuel to spur the artist forward. They provide the very demanding questions that are the fodder of every great work. 

Sarah and Boo were amazing participants to have at the CrisisArt Festival. They were funny, loving, and open to all of our artistic pursuits. They brought an eye to the performances that was incredibly unique and in touch with the realities of the crises that we as artists wanted to portray. 

It was also an honor to be able to make them laugh with our comedic antics. That slight reprise was the least we could provide for people who undertake such ambitious projects day after day after day. 

As far as poverty porn goes, let's keep the discussion going. Comment here or on our Facebook page--send us a message even! Maybe you'll see your response posted here on our Tumblr! 

If you want to learn more about Restore Humanity go to: www.restorehumanity.org

What is the CrisisArt Festival?

The CrisisArt Festival is a week-long event where artists and activists from around the globe come together in Arezzo, Italy to both share their work and discuss the worldwide distress that's been growing ever since the 2008 financial crisis.

What is unique about this crisis is that it is the first man-made global crisis that we have ever faced. Never before has the world been united in its distress. There is no nation that is secure in its financial future. There is no family that does not worry about the world their children will inherit.

Everywhere instability can be found. Everywhere people feel at risk. It's manifesting in many different forms, but it's everywhere you look.

And it's hard when you're at risk to even attempt to change. However, we must change.

But I will admit, it's much easier to change when you are tucked away in a gorgeous Tuscan villa.

Can you tell me more about this gorgeous Tuscan villa?  

I sure can! The CrisisArt festival takes place on the campus of Accademia dell'Arte which is housed old Tuscan villa that has been converted into classrooms, theaters, studios, and housing for students of the performing arts. During the year, Accademia dell'Arte offers study abroad programs for undergrads as well as two MFA programs in physical theater.

The villa is absolutely gorgeous as I will now demonstrate with some mind boggling pictures. 

Here's one of their rehearsal spaces: 

Here's one of their theaters: 

Here's the roof of that theater: 

And the view from within the theater:

Yeah. It's stupid. It's stupid how pretty it is.

Thanks to donors, we only had to pay a small fee for room and board in order to participate in the festival, which was amazing seeing as we were provided with three wonderful meals a day. 

It was pretty magical. 

Yeah. Wait. What? 

That's what we said, too. It's actually unbelievable.

So, a bunch of artists and activists spend a week at a beautiful villa in the heart of Tuscany eating wonderful food--how does crisis fit into all this again? 

Hold on, hold on. I was just getting to that part.  

Art, at its best, has a hint of the future in it while also giving clarity to the past. Not only does it act as a soothsayer, but it also gives us a playground for experimenting with new systems of social and political order. 

The CrisisArt website says it best:

There is a new and manifest spirit of resistance that is visible around the world. Everywhere people are searching for, and experimenting with, creative means to assert a new social autonomy, outside the control of financial capital. Never has there been a better time, a more important time, for creative artists to join with social activists to give shape to the emerging social struggles.

That's right. The Off-Color Theatre Company is giving shape to your emerging social struggles: 

Bam! How's that for an emerging social struggle? 

Mmm, I can feel the ripples of the future all the way over here!

Uh oh! Looks like the financial capital is wooing the strong arms of our justice system again! That little rascal! 

So, why are you guys here again?

If any genre of art has ripples of the future in it, its comedy. Comedy is all about seeing what is and then expanding upon it, showing its possibly extraordinary consequences if followed through to the nth degree. 

It's about showing the ridiculousness and absurdity within our systems once they are magnified or applied out of a traditional context. 

And also, after a week of talking about violence against children, poverty, and the moral debt were all slowly amounting, it was nice to laugh a little.

But, seriously, art and crisis... what could you possibly have done in a secluded villa in Tuscany to improve the world? 

In all honesty, yes, the views were beautiful. And the low cost we had to pay for room and board thanks to the help donors was also really wonderful. And, yeah, being in Italy was kind of cool, I guess. 

But in the end, it was the chance to experience an entirely different way of building a community that truly made the festival what it was.

We did not just talk about how to change the world, we actually experimented with how the world could be changed. 

You see, the festival is structured in a unique way. At the festival, there is no traditional vertical power structure, meaning there was no hierarchy, no leader, no assistants, no underlings, and (especially) no interns. Instead, there was a horizontal power structure where no one person overruled another. Everyone who was at the festival helped to build the festival and had an equal say in what the festival became. No one person held any more responsibility than anyone else and no participant was devalued. 

What this meant was that we not only participated in the festival as performers, speakers, and audience members, but we also served food to each other, we cleaned up after meals for each other, and we prepared the grounds for each other's performance. We had daily meetings where we delegated tasks, we discussed technical issue, and we saw that everyone and everything was taken care of and was shown respect. 

We were a collective. And by being a collective, real relationships built on respect and trust began to form between everyone no matter where they were from or what their talent happened to be. We were united by a love of art and a love a discussion and, soon enough, a genuine love of each other.

Quickly, although no jobs where required, we all started to take on as much as we could for the pure joy of building our community and helping out our friends. We became a productive society and, yet, still a free society. We were a collective, but our autonomy as individuals was respected and retained. At no point was anyone forced to act out of their own will. 

Wait a second... Are you one of those sneaky communists? I thought we got rid of you! 

Look, political and economic theory is a complicated but relevant issue and if we can't even talk about possible alternatives or even variations on our current structures than it's going to take us much longer to rebuild a sense of stability in our communities again. 

So, are you saying that the ability to talk and experiment freely both artistically and intellectually amongst amazingly beautiful and intelligent peers from around the world is really wonderful way to spend a week and is also the first step to addressing the global crisis in our midst?

Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. 

We need to be free to take risks right now, socially, economically, and politically. We need to experiment and discuss new ways to find stability in our own homes. 

This festival gave artists and activists a chance to come together and, through our work, communicate fearlessly and boldly what crises we were seeing in our own lives and how we wanted to address them. 

The festival was about people of all different backgrounds coming together to work outside of the normal confines of their nations political, social, and economic structures to experiment with a different way of being, of operating. 

It was a study of how we could all be together and build something more than any one of us could do alone. 

Wow. That sounds great. 

It was. And sure, maybe this structure doesn't work on a larger scale or for a more long term scale, but for this week, the festival was able to bring us all together and form bonds that we will carry with us when we return to our separate shores. 

More than the beautiful views, the lovely food, and the wonderfully innovative and daring art, it was he connections we made to people from all over the world that really made this festival what it was.

Even now as I speak, I scroll though my Facebook newsfeed and I'm seeing posts from friends in Italy, in Ukraine, and in England about the political struggles they are seeing on the streets. Our world has been opened through them. 

We were honored to see so much work from all different perspectives and created through such stunning talents we'd like to share some of their beautiful work with you. 

So, over the next few posts on this blog, we're going to be highlighting certain performances, lectures, and films from the festival. Stay posted! 

For more information on the CrisisArt Festival and how you can apply, go to http://www.crisisart.org/

When we first arrived in Kankakee Monday morning, we did not have a play. Here we are, without a play:

When we left Kankakee Friday night, we had a play. Oh boy, did we have a play. Our (in theory) 45 minute piece clocked in closer to an hour and twenty minutes. Here we are with a play:

Okay. I joke. That's not our play. Those are several different rewrites of our play piled on top of one another. But still. We killed a lot of trees.

We could not have done all that tree-killing without Kankakee, IL.

We could not have done any of this without Kankakee, IL. 

This past week has changed me as a person and as an artist and, although I'm often accused of hyperbole, I mean that sincerely. 

If you've been following our journey, you'll know that developing new work is hard and devised work is even harder. The problem with both is that they can't exist without a lot of risk, a lot of love, and a lot of bravery. You need to give yourself over to the moment and live without the comfort of second-guesses. You also have to put rent and food on the back-burner. 

It's a tough gig. Even tougher is finding that first break--finding that place that will say: you deserve the time and the freedom to search for something that does not yet exist. 

It is at this point that we would like to thank the heavens for Brandi Burgess who provided us with not only the time and the freedom, but the family and the faith to pull it all off: 

This picture is from her appearance in Off-Color Theatre Company's No Talent Hacks. Brandi this past week provided an abundance of faith and family for our team. Here she is packed into our literal clown car with the Out of Tooner cast on our way home from rehearsal.

Brandi is currently working as the inaugural artist-in-residence in Kankakee, IL. She is helping to bring both economic and cultural prosperity to the community and she is doing one heck of a job.

She brought us to Kankakee with the faith that our team would bring something amazing and we had to have faith that she would provide the family we needed--the safe creative haven--to deliver a completely new and totally devised show.

She and Kankakee delivered big time. 

Firstly, she connected us to Donna and Steve Worth who opened up their beautiful home for us to stay in for the week. Donna and Steve were nothing short of quite possibly the most amazing hosts I've ever had the pleasure to stay with. They provided full breakfast spreads every morning and even threw a hilariously boisterous game night for us. 

If that wasn't enough--local restaurants and caterers provided lunches and dinners for us. Including the epically awesome Stella Bear Foods who provided to us a mouthwatering selection of wraps, salad, and quinoa salad that included more than enough vegan options and also provided an impromptu dinner for our company after our show Friday night. Not only that, they delivered upon us hug after hug after hug. 

We were also treated to lunch and deadly-delicious cupcakes by Nana's Cakery and Cafe. It took us an entire hour to recover from ecstasy after splitting a case of their cupcakes amongst the company. 

As lovely as the food was--the biggest gift Kankakee gave us was an audience. That was the entire reason we came to Kankakee, I remind you (although the cupcakes would have been reason enough). 

Our first night, Brandi managed to convince a few brave souls to journey through an unfinished show with us. 

The response that small house gave us though was unbelievable. Not only did they show up to watch the show and laugh at our jokes--they completely gave themselves over to our programming. They stayed after the show to engage in a passionate and thought-provoking talk-back and then they followed us to a bar where they continued to give us intelligent feedback and encouraged our progress. It's a reception that we never would have received in Chicago. The next morning we were on the front page of their paper: 

We also got covered on the internet by the lovely Pam who had visited us the day before (with her adorable dog that just about stopped rehearsal in its tracks). Pam wrote a fabulous article about us on her blog reelhonestreviews.com and also took some great pictures of us actually working. 

Our second night, thanks to the press, word-of-mouth, and Brandi, our house more than doubled. 

During this show, we presented some of our more risky material. Although we did stir up some people, the talkback after the show proved to be worth the excitement. Once again, the audience was wildly engaged, thoughtful, and offered plenty constructive criticism for us to think about.

Our actors especially connected with the audience and were trying to bribe one particularly adorable resident to join our group: 

Although she declined the offer of a teddy bear, she would later write cards for the company--nice to know our off-color humor has hit big with the youth of Kankakee!

Just like before, our night did not end with the talk-back but continued to the local bar where once again we engaged in debate over what political points we wanted to make and why humor was effective in broaching these topics. We laughed together, shared stories together, and addressed very serious topics together.

The strength and vibrancy of the community was everywhere we looked.

In this small town, I was reminded why I decided to do theater in the first place. It wasn't to compete with other artists or to schmooze so that my career could progress and my salary would increase: it was to make new friends and engage in productive dialogue about our country, our families, and our community.

Two of the most engaging audience members were the hosts of WKAN's Morning Show with Bill and Allison. We were invited to stage a coup in their studio on Wednesday morning and took them up on their offer without hesitation. 

Not only were Allison and Bill the most supportive community members in helping us put up our show--checking in on us daily and rallying the community around us--but they are the most amazing community members period.

You see, Bill Yohnka is secretly the Leslie Knope of Kankakee. He is the economic development director of the town and his dedication is unlike anything I've ever seen. He is passionately working around the clock to making this town continually better and better and better. I'm pretty sure he doesn't sleep. 

He is so amazingly passionate about his town that the Chicago Tribune wrote and article about him as well as the artist-in-residence program and Stella Bear Foods co-owner Sara Gallager. 

To see a whole town rally together, not just for us, but for themselves was inspiring to a degree that I could not even begin to express. 

They lit a fire under our butts that we had no desire to blow out. 

The next three days, we rehearsed like crazy. Often we were working off of three hours of sleep. We were rewriting, restaging, developing new material, building costumes, learning music, memorizing lines, and reshaping our show so that we could make Kankakee proud to call us guests. 

I can't tell you the hours we had to spend just trying to shave Nick so that way he could effectively play a baby.

The only times when we did take a break were when the citizens of Kankakee demanded it of us. Whether it was by throwing us a party at a local pub like Local Celebrity Chris James did or by giving our actor's massages like Angela did during our open rehearsal, the town made sure that we were taken care of so that way we could do art without a single distraction. 

It was with this love, support, engagement, and feedback that we were able to mount an original show on Friday. And we mounted it without fear. We wanted to make Kankakee proud, but we were not in it for egos or for fame. We wanted to do the work so that we could give back to the community that had given us so much. 

I know what I want in my life. I want to be surrounded by friends and family. I want to make art with my friends and family. I want to laugh and play games and talk about tough questions with my friends and family. If I could have a place to sleep, food to eat, and a nice shower at the end of the day as well, that would be great. 

This is all I want. 

This is everything Kankakee, IL gave us.

Thankfully, the feeling of gratitude appears to be mutual. We told Brandi to forward all of our hate mail to us. Instead she sent us this:

For me, the Out of Tooners has proven to be a valuable experience for several reasons. Here's just one. This week, I have watched my fifteen year old daughter, laugh at the world, and realize she's not alone in her thoughts. Huge. Thank you.

And this:

Dear Brandi: You may have noticed the young man with me last night, who is developmentally disabled. That is my nephew. Age 46, he was not dealt a good hand at birth, but we love him dearly. I can’t tell you how much going to see the Out of Tooners meant to him. He has talked about it constantly, and smiled, and they made him happy. That makes me happy, and grateful they came to our little town. So thank you, Brandi, and thank you, Bugsy, Baby Wee Wee, and especially Lucy; who sat in front of him in the vignette which required them to sit in the first row. She spoke kindly to Danny when we greeted one another, and he was thrilled. I heard about that in the car on the way home. The Out of Tooners will forever have two fans, and my eternal gratitude. 

There has never been a more rewarding response to any project I have ever done. This experience has already been life-changing for me and we haven't even gotten to Italy yet! (I have a sense though that once we get to Arezzo we'll wish we were in Kankakee). The kindness, intelligence, and vibrance that this town has shown us will be carried with me wherever I go. 

And not just figuratively. 

Kankakee resident Marc gave me this shirt after I saw him wearing it. I wanted to know where to buy one and he said that they didn't sell them so he went out to his car and switched shirts so that I could take his home.

How nice are the people of Kankakee, IL? They will literally give you the shirt of their back.

Until next time... 

I spent an evening last week at director Jesse's house moaning about how nothing I was writing was funny. Not only was it not funny, but it wasn't even grammatically sound. They were just words on pages. One scene ended with Aly's character punching an executive in the crotch until he shit himself. 

But at least there were words on pages and I have found that that is half the battle. 

Nothing can begin from nothing. Even if what is on the page is not the piece it does not mean that it will not act as that first domino to topple you on towards that moment when inspiration does hit and boom you have yourself an artistic product. 

Recently, I came across an interview with playwright Sam Shepard where he said a number of things relevant to our process:

An Interview with Playwright Sam Shepard

Here are some of my favorite quotes.

I really think that we are not just one person. We are a multiplicity of beings, if you want to call it that. Not to get too philosophical about it, but it’s very easy for me to see character in the shifting, myriad, ever-changing tableau rather than one part. We’re used to looking at character in a traditional sense, of being something we can define by behavior or background. You know what I’m saying? But it may not be like that; it may be much more interesting. For me, anyway. It may not be so interesting to lock down the character with specifics. What I’m interested in is this shifting of the character, you know, not the exactness of definition.

Our show features a lot of quick changes: we only have three actors sculpting out an entire world. But in order to begin the act of sculpting and molding, you need the stone and the clay. The work becomes experiment after experiment of seeing what force you can create with your hands to bring about the most satisfying motion of the material, not about getting the clay to look just right. 

I’ve never written a play that I couldn’t rewrite.

As a creator you must learn to embrace that there is never an end point. If you are an attentive and giving human, you will never stop being done with an idea. That is exciting. Just because you will never have an answer doesn't mean you should quit. You got to learn to love the questions, as Rilke says. 

I don’t think you can have too much craft. Maybe you can’t have enough. It’s a funny balance between what we like to call inspiration and what we like to call work. And you can’t do without either one. If you hang around and wait for something to hit you in the head, you’re not going to write anything. You’ve got to work. You want to work for something. And these experiences, or accidents, can happen anytime. rough the back door.

For instance, I’ve been working on these stories, fiction, for some time, journals and whatnot, and I’ll be writing a while and take a look at something, and BOOM! there’s a play that’s developing while I’m working on short fiction, and I can’t not write it in that moment. 

Every art has its moment. You cannot force this moment but you can help facilitate it. Just. Keep. Writing. Even if what you are writing is simply [joke], keep writing. You never know when the particular moment will pass and the work will be born. You never know what will be the parent of a moment of transcendence. You never know what the lineage of the joke will be. 

Sometimes, but often I’ve found when you know where you’re going, it deadens something. If I have some sort of a vague idea - or specific idea - you’re already there, and you’re not allowing yourself to travel to the end. It’s like you’re driving cross-country to Omaha, you know; if you’re dreaming about Omaha the whole time, you’re going to miss the trip. And it’s not a bad idea to know where you’re going, but you can’t have that thing determine conclusions for you. What’s in front of you is a big part of evolution. I’m not against having a destination, but that point can sometimes blind you from your trip.

I have a hard time finishing anything I write.

Jesse has told me again and again to forget the arc. Throw out the map. Humor in particular will be born by its own rules and will move where it wants. To even pretend you can contain it is to kill the joke itself. 

Last quote from the interview: 

CROWD MEMBER: Is there any advice you can give us?

SHEPARD: Plunge in.

Our family stops short at the cold ocean water:

A tidal wave is about to over take them. 

Our family hesitates on the dock.

Aly unfurls the beach towel:

Andrew pins their towel down so it doesn't fly away: 

Aly is a seagull! 

They spot a shark!

And Aly farts? Or is a motorboat. 

And here they are cutting down a Christmas tree.

Right now, the more common method (the breast stroke of methods, if you will) for producing plays in America (although it's quickly changing) is to have the process begin with a playwright alone in a room. There might be a few table reads or a director to bounce ideas off of, but ultimately the structure and development of the piece lays in the hands of whoever holds the pen. Casting, rehearsing, and production design tend to not seriously enter the picture until much later in the game. 

Often these scripts go through multiple drafts and workshops before reaching their final stage but once they have a premiere production, they generally are set in stone (unless you are Diane Paulus, but that's another matter). Because of this, the script is usually the definitive base structure that all other matters of production must wrap around. When you go and see Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, you will generally be seeing the play as it was scripted when first performed, but you are almost guaranteed to have a completely different production design surrounding it. 

In devised theatre, this is not so. Writing, rehearsal, and production design all become equal. It is a thicker and more ambitious collaborative process where no one avenue overrides another. Instead they act in dialogue. The script follows the actors as they develop character. The plot responds to the whims of the production design instead of the other way around.

Often, devised theater pieces find their roots and themes in discussions between all of artists involved in the project. For us, that meant six months of weekly writers meetings where we phoned in from across the country to discuss politics and cartoons. We'd watch Animaniacs and the Daily Show. We'd discuss headlines and our own frustrations with government and general American ideology. We talked about growing up and finding that the America that had been promised to us in cartoons and in school wasn't quite what we received. 

Each week we discussed the actors and their characters. We asked them what they felt like exploring and who they wanted to inhabit. We talked about possible wants and fears. We talked about what comical games they could play. Meanwhile, Jesse directed Nick and Andrew in Chicago while I watched their rehearsal footage in Massachusetts. From there I would write out the scenes they improvised, cleaning them up and tightening the comedy. They would then usually look over my script for about ten minutes and the chuck it off to the wayside and improv again. 

Most playwrights would be shocked to see their precious words treated that way, but this irreverence is exactly what we are after and why we're approaching this project this way. We are attempting to combine both the formula of cartoon comedy with the immediacy of in-the-moment physical work. We are trying to find a new world of play where all artists involved have a freedom to explore their impulses. We take cues from one another but are not bound by them. 

Now that we are all together in Chicago, we've been improvising and honing down scenes. Our characters are becoming clearer and our games are becoming sharper, but its an uphill battle. 

This is what our Writer's Meetings look like in Chicago: 

Don't be fooled by the corn beef hash. The brunch is to make us all feel better about ourselves and the fact that we feel like we have no idea what we're doing. 

It's very frustrating to have donors and family members ask us, "What play are you doing?" and "What's your play about?" and have to look them in the eye and say "No idea. We're going to make it up as we go along." 

And we really are. Yes, some of the themes and characters have become clearer, but the process of putting it together and solidifying our structure is all being improvised on the spot. 

As the head writer, its been my job to squeeze story and point of view out of this baby while leaving enough room for the actors to breathe. I've found that the best way to approach my job is to tell myself that my goal is to make it so that the actors have to do zero-thinking when they are performing. I need to set up the structure so that they can be present in the moment while producing material that is cohesive, poignant, and intelligible. 

It's no small order. 

I've been spending my days pooping out writing that looks like this: 

And this:

And this:

I dare you to try to pull anything cohesive, poignant, and intelligible out of that!

And yet, this is my job. 

As a notorious over-thinker and an artist with a habit for overcomplicating things and taking large leaps with little explanation, this process has been a challenge for me. 

But I think I'm slowly getting there. 

Here's my most recent attempt to organize our work located in the very prestigious location of my kitchen: 

Note the color-coding!

My process as a music director looks a little something like this:

Why yes! That is the sheet music for Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" which I am in fact trying to learn to play on the piano and kazoo at the same time.

You can tell our budget is astronomical because my music is being held up by post-it notes...

Like everything about this project, the methodology is a work in progress. But its exciting. We're finding new ways to generate ideas and new ways of communicating them. We're exploring how to build strong cooperative habits and develop a piece that has a view that belongs to the whole as opposed to the part. It's a hard fight, but I'm glad we're doing it.