I’ve had several really great theater experiences. I studied in London for a year in college and will never forget being a groundling at The Globe. It was the first time that, as an audience member, I felt I was part of the show. That’s when it became clear how powerful it is to destroy that awful fourth wall we build in the theater and really share a story with the audience. I think the fourth wall is deadly for live theater. They do it better in the movies…let them have the fourth wall. Let live theater share the same space as its audience.
You're a member of The House Theatre....share the core of its
philosophy. How does House connect with and help build community?
At the core of The House’s philosophy is the following mission statement:
It is the mission of The House to unite Chicago in the spirit of Community through amazing feats of Storytelling.
The House is interested in creating community, if only for a few hours at a time. We do this through the ritual of theater. Every night we do a new show WITH (not for) a new audience. They are vital to what happens on stage and they can feel it. They share that feeling with the 140 other people that walk into the theater that night. Maybe they laugh or cry. Maybe they’re moved…Regardless, there was a shared experience that was unique to the collection of people in the audience that night.
Talk a little about the process of creating this piece, and your fellow cast members.
Creating this piece was a joy. Molly Brennan (our director) is a genius. She has a phenomenal way of getting us to be alive, alert and real in the space. We did a lot of workshopping. We worked constantly on the fundamentals of clowning. We worked at being emotionally available. We worked at reacting to each other and to the audience in real and exciting ways.
The script I wrote was, largely, an action script. I wrote what had to happen to move the story forward. I wrote the essentials of the characters and what they do to each other.
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