Performance Etiquette

The Interview

On Saturday, June 30th at 1:30 p.m. I will be performing in Collaboraction Theater Company's 12th Annual Sketchbook Festival: Reincarnate in THE INTERVIEW.

In the vein of Neo-Futurism and Live Lit Storytelling, I am honored to be on the stage again. The performance is unscripted and the acting mind is one of emptying and clarity. What I may bring to the table is a Buddhist's composure, a sassy etiquette, a poet's critique, and an open heart.

I believe this type of performance breaks boundaries and breaks the theater's fourth wall by being unabashedly honest. As a writer, I thrive on presenting shock that is rooted from a place that resembles home. My intent is not to trigger, but to muckrake and, more so, to present a commonality, a compassion, and an understanding in the human condition.

We are after all, humans. And if we can reach into ourselves and find truth and have courage to share it - why wouldn't we?

I hope my truth resonates with yours.

"THE INTERVIEW [by Lawrence Bridges, directed by Ian Forester] is an unscripted theatrical experience that breaks new ground in documentary theater. Mr. Bridges, a seasoned experimental documentary and feature film director, has crafted a set of instructions for a solo performer, which prompt an unexpectedly personal and spontaneous theatrical experience. As the actor responds with stories and personal accounts to these previously unheard instructions, the play unfolds along a hidden arc, resulting in an unforgettable encounter between audience and performer. Since THE INTERVIEW can be done only once by a performer, no two shows will ever be the same. Part theater and part social experiment, THE INTERVIEW promises to be a funny, poignant, and thought-provoking examination of the human condition."

I can / eat as I go.

I am reading Cheryl Strayed's Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. It has been one year and one half since my mother passed away. I am on page 65. She is talking about junipers and sage. She is talking about memory. She is talking about a woman hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on her own. There is a scene where she confronts her backpack as burden.
 
To the right of my blog post, the "About Me" section, replaced a long time ago, is a Denise Levertov quote: "I can eat as I go."
  
My grief has been less harrowing than that of Cheryl's account, because I think the time leading up to it was actually when I unraveled. But the wilderness is the same.

I turn 30 in August. I plan to be in California for the first time in my life.

I look forward to stepping westward.

STEPPING WESTWARD
by Denise Levertov

What is green in me 

darkens, muscadine.
If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to
ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now
is a time of ripening.
If her part
is to be true,
a north star,
good, I hold steady
in the black sky
and vanish by day,
yet burn there
in blue or above
quilts of cloud.
There is no savor
more sweet, more salt
than to be glad to be
what, woman,
and who, myself,
I am, a shadow
that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out
on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens
they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket
of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me
in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.