Collaborating with Manton Ave

When Jed and I first entered the Providence theater scene we were enthusiastically advised to volunteer with The Manton Avenue Project. We jumped into our first MAP production in 2010. Jed played a rich man who went to Wal-Mart to buy a computer and I played a dog who who was also a lumberjack. Over the years we continued to volunteer when we could, and our mutual affection grew. Eventually Strange Attractor even purchased a button maker with MAP, which cemented our bond in commerce.  At some point committing to the MAP schedule became difficult. Show after show came and went without us, while we made our own shows happen, knowing we couldn’t be everywhere at once and that both of our organizations were contributing to the health of Providence. Anytime I’d apologize for not being able to volunteer MAP's generous director Meg Sullivan would say, “Don’t ever apologize” and give me a big hug.

When Marc Boucai at AS220 created the Community Live Arts residency, Jed and I knew that Before We Begin would be an interesting project to propose. A personal artistic experiment requiring large-scale space demands, it was the kind of non-play play that would be fun to create in the unjuried uncensored environs of AS220. That the residency required 30 volunteer hours with a non-profit was a bonus. We decided to ask Meg at Manton Ave to collaborate.

The young playwrights at Manton Ave took to our physical playwriting techniques with more enthusiasm and joy than many adults. We asked them to find empathy with the physical world around them -- to become sugar cubes melting, fire growing and being extinguished, balloons being blown up and let go. For young playwrights who routinely create characters from animals and inanimate objects, these leaps of empathy were pure joy. After one class we reflected with Meg about her incredible kids, and she said people will sometimes say that MAP teaches young people empathy, but after the past several years, she’s come to realize that the kids don’t need to learn empathy -- they teach it to us.

Now we’re in the theater, on the verge of this new batch of plays, created using physical theater techniques with audience interaction, written in the woods of New Hampshire, in the MAP Clubhouse in Providence and with the input and care of adults who are more than willing to let these young playwrights lead the way and will assist in telling their stories with generosity and love.

Jed and I keep remembering that we ended up here because we decided to make a play, and that play was accepted into a residency program that asked us to go farther than our show. Making Before We Begin was incredible, but by volunteering with MAP this summer, we’ve extended that creative impulse well beyond the walls of our own performance. While we wrap up our own Community Live Arts Residency this weekend, we can’t help but imagine all of the other projects upon projects that will happen in Providence because of this multi-layered opportunity, and we hope all of them have the multi-layered heart-opening process of creation that we have.

Before We Begin: Flat History

The Before We Beginroom is coming up like these things do: one wall at a time. As theatre-folk, when we say "walls," what we mean are "flats," ie, fake walls that create space. These are common base-objects in lots of plays -- particularly when you're using black boxes that need help defining the performance space and creating architecture. We're pretty lucky that we have some storage at our house so that when we finish a show we can actually store the flats and use them again. Each show, however, wants a different scenic feel, which means that unearthing flats is like a trip through your past shows. By the time audiences see Before We Begin, of course all of this will be covered up, but right now in the Black Box I can personally see the ghosts of three past shows on these flats.

This flat still has the painted scene from last summer's Idle:

You can see it in action here with actor Clara Weishahn in the show:

These flats still hold the colors from 2012's A Terrific Fire. The colors had fantastic names like "creme brûlée" and "hot watermelon. We were obsessed with them while making the show, but I can't remember them now. Anyway, here they are the flats today:

And here's some in their original incarnation.

This is the green (like, "majestic forest" or something?):

And here's that "hot raspberry" or whatever:

This wallpaper looked super familiar and I couldn't place it. . . .

Then I remembered we loaned the flats to our pals at Elemental Theatre Collective in 2012 for their show Vacancy, and they had wallpapered it to look like a cheap motel room. I wish I could find a picture of that online, but sadly. . . we'll all just have to use our imaginations. Unless someone from Elemental can hook me up with a picture. . .

(UPDATE) D'Arcy Dersham read this post and then sent me the perfect picture. Check out the then-in-tact plaid wallpaper with actor Jeff Hodge:

And soon all these concrete reminders of these past shows will be covered up by Before We Begin. Good thing we take pictures.

Before We Begin: Songs and Movies

We are making a new play that isn't really a play. As a part of the work we're doing on this non-play is collaborating with Xander Marro on a video that goes in the piece and Kirsten Volness and Jacob Richman on writing a song that we will teach the audience to sing. Both avenues of creation are new to us and all are artists we've admired for a long time, but never worked with. In other words, we're having a good time. We can't show you the video or sing you the song (yet!), but we thought it might be fun to share a couple little teasers.

So! Here is a still from a video test shoot Xander did with us to get the green screen down:

And here are the lyrics of the amazing song we wrote with Kirsten and Jacob:

We live in a dead man's house. We live in someone else's dream. I live in a time of creation. My bones grow while I sleep.

Show up when you're ready. Tell me how you feel. Dirty snow is dirty Because we get behind the wheel.

Past hopes. Future wishes. Time washes the grooves of our struggle From the shores of our remembering.

Who will sing your song when I am dead?

Then there's also this little chant:

If it's useful, celebrate it! If it's crashing, elevate it!

See you June 1-12 at AS220 in Providence.