Author: z.akca

Utopia in Performance, frankly, was an interesting read but there were many moments I could not find myself connecting with. I completely agree with Dolan in that performance becomes a statement that then exists in a space with an audience that feels and reacts, but she attaches this to the “what if” quality of a work but most works I have responded to, and watched people also respond were not pieces of what if but pieces of “here is the reality we live in” in some sort of way. I get that this could connect to the what if in certain situations.

It is also confusing when she mentions the meaning of utopia in terms of performance that is experimental and changing the way of the work, the way we exist in the world, and the way we respond to politics, but performances that are utopic, at least in the sense that I think of utopia where problems have been solved and people are happy are what we usually assume to be spectacles that are empty. Then I wondered, is she talking about the utopia of everything that is real and critical safely happening in one space. But then that is what all performance creates and connecting the sense of safety of a space of performance mostly to experimental and non-traditional performance than does not make sense.

I have seen plenty of theater that was “experimental” that did not explore themes of politics and the changing world, and I have seen many traditional shows that did exactly what Dolan’s talking about Playwright’s Horizon’s This Flat Earth, Broadway’s The Band’s Visit, and the list goes on. This confusion maybe because we only had the introduction and the first chapter, but something about her connecting 9/11 with the landscape of theater today.

Theater in its roots wanted to make people think about their lives and consider emotions and interpersonal connections, but in this postmodern world where theater isn’t the only way to tell stories to a public, shouldn’t we be rethinking these notions? Shouldn’t it be the artists choice to not spell out their meaning within the show but just let it exist as a piece of performance?

The other side of this is that Dolan assumes audiences are not aware of their experiences unless they are theater makers like Dolan herself. Her entire thesis seems to be on the fact that for performance to affect people, the people need to know exactly why they are being affected by and what they should be thinking and feeling. Which simply is absurd as an idea, we as theater makers need to trust that audiences make the choices to see our materials because they want to feel something. Audiences are smarter than needing to be spoon fed information, they are capable of feeling and understanding all kinds of materials.

Utopian performatives should not have to exist outside of the theater, their effect of course continues after the performance is done, but this shouldn’t be a burden on the performance maker and especially not anything indicating the quality of the work created.

I honestly did not know what to expect of this class and what we could do within the perimeters of our subject. When reading O, Earth, to be completely transparent, I wasn’t sure if I felt comfortable with the way it was written. It turns out that I just needed to hear those words spoken by a group of talented actors to awaken the need of working on this play in me. As the only person who identifies as QPOC in the class (and a passing one on all grounds at that) and a director passionate about bending the rules and creating spaces without boundaries I thought this would be a great challenge to take on.

At first I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to cast the play true to its ethical form, true to its nature of creating a space for those who aren’t necessarily heard in the performing arts world. I theoretically knew that these people existed, somewhere out there in the universe, but how would we find them? Dana did a terrific job of setting up our backstage and making sure people are seeing and responding to our ads and before we knew it our audition rooms filled up with so many personalities of so many different backgrounds. I panicked looking at the vast amount of headshots in front of me as I had to make a choice of casting. As life goes, some of these decisions were easily and the rest extremely hard. I don’t know if I could’ve made decisions that were any better, but somehow this bunch of people were able to click well and have the conversations this play requires its team to have.

I wanted the characters of the play to be created through the actors, using their personal experiences in the real world that we could then bring into the worlds of these characters. This meant many conversations, trust exercises, and attempts to bond over snacks. By a couple of weeks into rehearsal, most actors seemed extremely comfortable in their characters and they knew what direction we would take them. This was harder with others, finding the aesthetic of Marsha and Sylvia while staying true to themselves was a challenge for both actresses. It was an effort to find the balance between what they thought was caricature, and what “camp aesthetic” was as well as who they are and who Marsha and Sylvia were. I am so extremely grateful for these actresses who took on the ridiculous challenge of acting out extremely important figures who meant a lot to them. Their final performance was so beautiful and campy yet understated that I could not be happier for the work they put into it.

I think that handling most by myself throughout a large portion of the rehearsal process, although overwhelming was a great opportunity to figure out the lengths I personally would go to, to make sure my work is translated on to a stage. Including spending weeks trying to find an actor and recasting a part after losing an actor to an injury two rehearsals before the performance. (Shoutout to Danny Marin for learning the path in two run-throughs, could not have been a full production without him). This was a challenge coming from an environment working with three other extremely talented people on putting together shows, as I had never had to carry whole rehearsals by myself. But I think this process helped me find my directorial voice, my version of performance ethics, and my vision as to what impact my art should have on the world.

One of the actors, after one of our last rehearsals told me, “I am very thankful that you cast me, I was looking for a place that would accept me as who I am and let me explore myself through my acting. And I hope that I can show someone one day that people like me can take up space on stage”. This was a queer man, who wanted to find his place in the world, and answer the question “am I gay enough for the community”, which is something I struggle with as a bisexual/queer woman. And just like my actors, I felt like I had a space to find myself, explore how my personality, and how my unique quirks can help a space become something that is different, something that touches someone, and gives them the idea that they too can be a part of this and no matter what they are enough. Because I am enough.

I don’t think I will ever forget the first time a playwright of a play said “This gave me a lot to think about, and I will rewrite a bunch. Thank you”. This was Casey, the night of May 11th. Applause and praise by audiences and peers is amazing but I don’t think anything can beat a playwright liking my work with their play in terms of fulfillment. I am grateful for the process, hardships, people, and experience.

I had the absolute pleasure of joining Honest Accomplice Theater (HAT) as a team member this semester through the Student Arts Ambassador Program. My first task was to assist their latest production in rehearsal, A Chip on Her Shoulder, written and directed by Kristin Kelly. This was the first piece of work that HAT did not devise with their team but rather worked with a written script of collected and edited interviews of women and trans people in the engineering field from Virginia and New York City. It was an exciting idea to be a part of as Kristin’s mom who’s an engineer was the inspiration for the entire project, and it all came from her need to understand her mom’s life and work in this climate where we constantly talk about female and LGBTQ+ erasure in our society it was important to understand those who are working in fields that are dominated by white males.

When I first signed on to help I thought I would be assistant director/assistant stage manager however time constraints and the needs of the production dictated that I would serve more as a production assistant coming in and out, helping with filling in spots and all that jazz. But this worked out perfectly as my course load got heavier over the course of the semester.

In the rehearsal room most of the focus was on getting the voices right as the actors were each acting out about at least 3 characters each who were all real people. The reading included excerpts from their interviews so a lot of documentary theater work went into the first few weeks of rehearsal. The staging of it was really more to make the words shine and get some comedic moments across, but for the most part actors were going to be standing by music stands and reading their monologues.

At the time of the performance, I had not seen a full run of the play so I did not know what to expect, or how much blocking was added since I hadn’t been to the last few rehearsals. When the actors came on stage and one of the actors, Jordan, started xe’s monologue I had butterflies in my stomach, I was nervous and excited for everything that was about to happen. And all of the stories; the actual chip in Vivian’s hand, the metaphoric chip on Rosemary’s shoulder, the situation of queer people in the field, women who are silenced at work and in classes, the sexual assault narratives, and finally “woman in tech” as a power statement, all seamlessly flew from one into the other, it was extremely funny, sad, and over all exciting to see these narratives that are so often overlooked told on a stage full of amazing actors, who were as diverse as a performance could get.

This performance really made me think about the place of diversity in theater and “color/gender blind casting”, and if it’s ethical to do so. “Blind” casting has a connotation of anyone being able to take part in a project, but shouldn’t we focus more on color/gender conscious casting? This is what we did for  O, Earth and it felt so much better to be conscious of the choices being made. This also would address the POC acting the part of a white person conundrum. What do I mean by that? It’s when a director casts a POC to cast a POC but none of the POC culture, personality, political meaning, etc. is implemented into the play. Kind of what casting one the gay men in the Ellen show portion of O, Earth as a POC does. This has been my conundrum for a while, and I think seeing Chip and working on O, Earth has answered it in some ways but it feels like there is still more to explore on this topic in relation to Ethical Performance Producing.