..how to speak about this 'portion' of beginning / September 2023

..how to speak about this ‘portion’ of beginning – as it really is the middle of creating, having had chance of an incredible core of artists, who were twice brought together in NY in 2022, under aegis of director Angelisa Gillyard, to do deep dive table work on the script, that put depth and fuller dimension to the character’s journeys.

Through these artists’ trust and generosity of speaking to personal experiences, resonant in the play, each person at the table allowed for their storytelling to support the truths that came, giving finer definition to moments of consequence.

All of this presented magic moments of illumination, and chewing, and sharing, discoveries that are prime in this next scaffolding of the work, for view in a space of imagination, tapestry of art forms that knit an experience of storytelling that is unexpected journey of forgiveness, and character.

But the work’s presentation, in January 2024, will also offer chance of experiment: in identifying the moment’s breath, as shape of ‘after space’, in recognition that some of the work’s content might have been triggering, and in that, making exercise of talkback along inquiry of “what did you think”, inappropriate, as many, triggered, may be too confronted to be thinking thoughts, much less articulating something to an audience of strangers..

It is in that consideration where this play offers a particular wonder: where might ‘audience care’ be placed, for such experience?

..-in a different room of refreshment and gathering, a breath of time later in the evening/matinee..?

..-or within a respectful and engaged ping a few days later, offering invitation to an ‘after event’, in a space of refreshment and conversation..?

..-in all of this, ‘the play’s the thing’ -as food for thought.